BioWare Announces Free DLC To Add More To the Mass Effect 3 Endings

An anonymous reader writes "The battle between angry fans and BioWare has been raging since the game's release over several issues, with the biggest being the disappointing ending. BioWare have stuck to their guns and stated that they won't make a new ending, but will release free DLC to add clarity to the existing ones."

Comments

Completely change the ending.

[Githaron]

If you feed someone crap with frosting on it, you are still feeding them crap.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[lattyware]

That's where you are wrong. It was never about 'liking' the ending - to have a 'Shepherd rides off into the sunset happily ever after' ending would be terrible, as it doesn't fit the games. It's about an ending that gives you closure, shows you what happened after and how the choices you made affected the world. That's what they are adding, and they are doing it right in that way.

An ending you don't like is a fact of any work - be it a book, film or game. An ending that doesn't fulfill is another thing, and that's what people have a problem with. It's the rough equivalent of Sam and Frodo getting to Mt. Doom and it just ending as the ring falls in. Sure, you know it ended, you know the main thing, but all of the little stuff surrounding it, the characters you got invested in, the places and events you cared about, you want to know how it all mattered in the end.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was never about 'liking' the ending

Some people seem to think they're speaking for everyone. For some people, it was the endings that were the problem. Some people didn't want galactic civilization ruined. Others might have wanted a happy ending. Still others might have liked the current endings.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[lattyware]

I'm just talking about why there was such an uproar. Plenty of films, books and even games have endings lots of people don't like, but the endings that don't answer questions and give closure are the ones where everyone has a problem with them. People can live with an ending they don't like - but an ending that doesn't leave them feeling like it's done? People do this kind of thing. It's the difference between some people not liking it, and virtually everyone who played the game being dissapointed by it.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[lattyware]

... where did I claim otherwise?

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there's a large contingent that didn't like the ending because it made no sense.

Mass Effect had unobtainium, biotics, improbably anthropomorphic alien life, and poorly-explained space lesbians. But once you moved beyond that, it actually tried to stay internally consistent. There were long meditations on heat exhaust and its effects on space stealth, how mass effect would impact sidearm design, etc.. Although it still make me bristle to hear that "negative current" changes mass one way and "positive current" changes mass another way.

Now though they have a magic method to turn Joker into a Cyborg somehow for no apparent reason. Or something that destroys all machines, including the Geth which have been completely liberated from the Reapers and your rebuilt internal organs (unless you got so many points that didn't happen). Or you choose the options where you control the machines, yet the mass relays still blow up (did you decide to do that? Surely you could rebuild them with your reaper knowledge and control of the reapers).

Re:Completely change the ending.

[lattyware]

Yeah, I think that all would have been overlookable, however. It's the lack of closure that really stung.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Zibodiz]

.... whoosh!

Re:Completely change the ending.

[byornski]

Why does it bristle you to hear that positive and negative currents could cause opposite effects? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Anonymous Coward]

By this logic, the ending to Lost was good as well. Awesome.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[grumbel]

I'm just talking about why there was such an uproar.

Well, I can't say why the uproar reached this magnitude, but the fact is that the ending is broken more then a few ways. It's not just that it doesn't give closure or answers all the questions, it's that it is lazy (i.e. color swap) and doesn't even make any sense on a very basic levels, it has characters showing up in places without explanation for how they got there and no time for them to have gone there. So it's not just bad, it's broken, which especially considering that the rest of the game and the rest of the series is perfectly fine is just a little weird.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[bitt3n]

It's the rough equivalent of Sam and Frodo getting to Mt. Doom and it just ending as the ring falls in.

SPOILER ALERT!

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Electricity Likes Me]

Some people seem to think they're speaking for everyone. For some people, it was the endings that were the problem. Some people didn't want galactic civilization ruined. Others might have wanted a happy ending. Still others might have liked the current endings.

And amongst those people, there's a lot of nuance in the position - don't generalize just to feel superior. "Dark and angsty" is not profound, and in a lot of cases is just lazy writing.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[BitZtream]

Dude, posting spoilers so soon, not cool :( You kinda ruined it for me now.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Anonymous Coward]

no shit. maybe enough bitching will make george lucas give us the films we want...oh wait it hasn't. special editions aside, he said he'd tell us exactly why qui-gon didn't disappear and what race yoda was by the end of the prequel trilogy. where are these answers?!

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Elldallan]

*SPOILER ALERT*

Yes all of what you are saying as well as the fact that the ending breaks with a lot of previously established canon content. For example, the protheans re-engineered the keepers which delayed the reaper invasion, how could that matter when the citadel itself is the sentient overlord of the reapers?

Arrival also establishes that the destruction of a relay is really bad news for every living being in the same star system.

And exactly how would destroying all synthetics prevent the galaxy from just creating more(at least humanity knows how to make a true AI(EDI) and has established that it sees advanced AI/VI research to be an important part of staying current in the military space race). If you reunited the geth and the quarians there is nothing that prevents the quarians from creating them again, they know what they did wrong the first time.

The list of plotholes or contradictions could be made much longer but I'll settle with pointing out just a few.

Another thing that is surprising from a financial standpoint is that BioWare pretty much intentionally kills the entire Mass Effect franchise. Because unless the ending is invalidated the fact that regardless of ending the mass relays are destroyed meaning that galactic society is now pretty much fractured and dead since long-range interstellar travel/communication is now impossible.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Githaron]

Dude, posting spoilers so soon, not cool :( You kinda ruined it for me now.

That's OK. Bioware and EA would have ruined it for you later.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Anonymous Coward]

And exactly how would destroying all synthetics prevent the galaxy from just creating more

This was noted during the introduction to that choice: that they would be remade at a later date and the cycle might begin again from there.

-D1

Re:Completely change the ending.

[Elldallan]

No I'm pretty sure "wonderboy" only says that the chaos will begin anew eventually
In the control ending Shepard can in theory restart the cycle if the synthetics rise up to wipe out organic life.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[IcyNeko]

Regardless of what people think of the ending, I think the issue here is EA and BioWare leadership's handling of this situation. If they had simply not made statements that people could hang onto, such as Casey Hudson's pre-release comment that users would not get a finite set of endings (and that the endings they would receive would be very different), a lot of the gamers would not feel as much disappointment. On top of that, the massive PR effort stating "We are listening", and then turning around and ignoring the fanbase that wants new endings (essentially.. NOT listening) by announcing that your new release will just add more scenes to try and explain the ending that the fans have expressed dissatistaction with... and again, adding that THEY ARE LISTENING..

I think this is what is causing the unending grief. It's like hanging out with an overtly flirty girl with ample figures who constantly teases, giving off false hopes each time she declines people.

True, the game is their Intellectual Property and "creative art piece". But they need to realize that their game ends where the executable code stops, and that PR is not an art form that they can willy nilly play around with. Especially since there's a huge fan base that has fallen in love with the work.

Personally, I love Mass Effect 3. The game made me replay 1 and 2, just because of how fantastic the writing was throughout the game. Until the end. For me, the ending was discontinuous and poorly written - completely changing the central theme and providing barely any resolution to the main plot at hand. I had the same reaction to the Matrix Reloaded. For me, BioWare pulled a Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions. And then, depending on your score, even retconned things that were stated in the ending for the sake of a cliffhanger. It was just a jarring ride of failure, but it's their jarring ride of failure, and I respect their right to make that their creative direction. I've written poor stories before, i understand.

But I don't understand the PR jerking around, or the attempt to not build bridges with the fans you've hit with a wall of discontent. It seems... very unprofessional. Again, I think this is the key to fueling the rage... is that PR jerk arounds and bad decisions on wording reopens fresh wounds.

BioWare, do your extended endings. Just be clear that you aren't really listening per se, or at least... tell how you're listening and what you're looking for in terms of input. If you just say "We are listening", you provide a huge window of hope. And when you crush that hope and, in the same message, reiterate that you are still listening... that's just insult upon injury. Come on, you're medical doctors at the top.

Re:Completely change the ending.

[IcyNeko]

Or, at least, postpone your game release until NaNoWriMo, so that your fans can outlet their frustration of an unsatisfactory ending through fan fiction. That would be pretty neat. Foolish, but neat. Instead of "We are listening", change your catch phrase to "Write your own ending".

EA strangles another once great studio

[stewartjm]

It's not just a disappointing ending. It's an ending that was obviously duct taped onto the end to shove it out the door 6-12 months before it should have been released.

And the only response from BioWare is typical PR spin, with wonderful PR phrases such as "we value our fans" and "artistic integrity".

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Nrrqshrr]

Not to mention that whole stock photo fiasco...
You take one of the most popular, loved, masked characters. She was in all three episodes, and there have been numerous speculations on what she could possibly look like. Entire threads with hundreds of posts were just discussing what lies under that mask of hers.... and in the end? It's just a poorly photoshopped stock photo they found on google and bought for 10 bucks.
Bioware is beyond redemption.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

bullshit.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/03/30/why-changing-the-mass-effect-3-ending-is-a-mistake.aspx

and watch this discussion

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/03/27/spoiled-mass-effect-3.aspx

just because you can whine really loud it doesn't mean you can dictate to a game developer how to make their games. anyone who thinks the difference in endings is the cut scene color wasn't paying attention to the story at all.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[wierd_w]

This surprises anyone?

For some reason, software companies feel that spaghetti wrapped in duct tape, (and in the case of game software), and that rough plots that are abrasive to the senses are "good enough", as long as they can "ship early!"

Nobody takes pride in their work or product anymore when it comes to software, except for independent hobby programmers.

It seems any time that *money!!* gets involved, quality slips, integrity dries up, and the bullshit gets deep. Really, it is just as much the public's insatiable desire for "WANT NAOW!" As it is the greed that feeds on it at fault.

We can't stop EA from being stupid assholes that ruin franchises and abuse studios. What we can do is control our side of the demand chain, and make their antics unprofitable.

The way to send EA the message is to buy their games used for 20$, and post pictures of the receipt on their forums as proof as part of the signature. If not their forum, any other forums you post at will do. Be sure the signature explains why you did this.

This is WORSE than not buying the game. Your making use of their support services actually COSTS them money, that will NEVER receive payment from you for. Hit them in the wallet, where it hurts the most.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Moheeheeko]

The biggest insult is, the ending was obviously rushed, but they had PLEANTY of time to tack on a shitty multiplayer function.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Khyber]

Not Google, DeviantArt.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone who thinks the difference in endings is the cut scene color wasn't paying attention to the story at all.

Yeah, just look at these massive differences.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Omestes]

just because you can whine really loud it doesn't mean you can dictate to a game developer how to make their games.

Why ever not? They make a consumer product, the consumers don't like it. They either fix it, or the consumers go else where with their money next time.

Works just fine. We're not talking about fine art here. EA can keep their "artistic integrity", but no one has to buy it; that also is a perfectly fine conclusion to this story. Outside of the fact that people won't give them money again, no one is forcing them to change their ending, or make their game in a certain way. They are free to make the worlds crappiest game, and I'm free to never give them money again.

I'm not one to talk though, since EA has been on my shit-list for a long time (over a decade now). I always think twice before giving them money, and generally wait for the first month of player reviews, if the game looks really solid (more solid that anything else made by a different company). And I will never, ever, buy their DLC. Further, I'm one of the only person who never really found Mass Effect terribly fun. The first one was okay (outside of being forced to hide behind walls 90% of the time). The second one took away everything I liked about the first, so I never really gave two shits about the third one.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Nrrqshrr]

Why shouldn't they?

Am one of those guys who touched a game pad for the first time at the age of 5 and knew from then that it gave birth to a fated passion. But if I, one dude who enjoys roguelikes and complicated storylines, boycotts a company, there will be a hundred more 12 years old kids who will happily buy the next Cawadooty because it got all kinds of tacticool weapons and flashy achievements.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Khyber]

I paid great attention to the story. I carried several characters from ME to ME3, through several playthroughs.

That was a fucking cop-out with very little expounding upon the future consequences/benefits of said action. It was too short, lacking detail, and quite obviously HASTILY DONE.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Penguinisto]

One small nitpick:

I don't think there is a credible and overwhelming demand from the users for an early release, as much as there is a credible and overwhelming demand from the beancounters and Board of Directors to release as early as practical (without screwing it up too badly... obviously they time that metric wrong on occasion).

I mean, it doesn't have to have the timeline of DNF (oh, Lordy...) but the primary rule should be that, like the old wine commercial, no game is released before its time.

Get the thing right and reasonably polished, then release it. And tell the board and beancounters to go fuck themselves if they demand otherwise. If you don't, it'll be an endless parade of variants on Daikatana, over and over and over... (and really, nobody wants that, I promise).

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[stewartjm]

If said game developer was a 1-3 person team I might just might buy the "Artistic Integrity" angle. But when said team is hundreds to thousands of people with the budget ticking at a million plus dollars a month, the actual impetus for "Artistic" decisions becomes crystal clear, and it's money money money.

Sometimes they do get lucky and churn out a hit despite their money driven process, most of the time they produce something that hits enough high points to pay back development costs with some profit, and other times they produce pure dreck like ME3s ending.

If only the gaming press wasn't so corrupt and incompetent, they might have been able to give ME3 the reviews it deserved, and kept it from raking in so much dough on the reputation of it's much more fulfilling predecessors.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just a disappointing ending. It's an ending that was obviously duct taped onto the end to shove it out the door 6-12 months before it should have been released.

And the only response from BioWare is typical PR spin, with wonderful PR phrases such as "we value our fans" and "artistic integrity".

Unless it ends up that the "indoctrination ending" theory is correct. In which case, it was one of the most fantastic endings ever--especially if two of the choices really mean that you "lost" and you betrayed everything you have fought for in the past two games and essentially became Saren. That would mean that indoctrination actually spilled over into "real-life".

Much like the Sopranos ending went over everyone's head (http://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/), the ME3 ending may turn out to be the greatest game ending ever.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nowhere else to go with ME, though. People have been told that their decision in the game matter, yet after 3 games and a few hundred hours of game play, everyone finds out it was all BS.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[wierd_w]

That is why you post the reciept, and a short explanation why you bought it used.

There is a marketing saying: for every customer you satisfy, he tells 5 friends. For every customer you screw over, he tells 15.

The internet let's you show your displeasure, and the proof of the pudding to potentially millions.

There is no question about your legal purchase. There is no grounds to say you are a pirate. In fact, if you pay full price at gamestop for used, and post the reciept, the "you are a greedy cheepskate" argument is also shot down. They then have no choice but to accept the reason tendered. That reason will be different for each person. Share it.

If you can make the scaes fall from even a single 12 year old's eyes, it will have done its job.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamers do dictate to game developers how to make games. How Bioware/EA handles this situation will have a huge impact on how future Bioware/EA games sell. The gamers who are upset are precisely the gamers that preorder the collector's edition and buy all the dlc and short of a real ending, they are going to have a hard time making these gamers want to preorder their next game. It doesn't matter if the gamers are being unreasonable. If I have time to play one rpg, I won't be buying from a company that is going to half ass the ending. See when a producer of a product doesn't live up to consumer expectations, fewer consumers give them money. Unfortunately, when the next big game comes along Bioware/EA will not see the half million sales they missed out on because they pushed out a game that did not deliver explicit promises made about the game or bothered to give any resolution or denouement to a 100 hour story.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[GmExtremacy]

just because you can whine really loud it doesn't mean you can dictate to a game developer how to make their games.

No one is saying that Bioware is forced to make anything. What they're saying is that they're displeased with what Bioware did make, and that they would like Bioware to fix it. It's Bioware's call after that.

You know, voting with your wallet? I'm really tired of people who think criticism is bad/giving your opinion is bad. Neither equates to thinking you have the ability to force someone to do what you want.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[wierd_w]

Oh, I agree. Their "think of all the money we will save by NOT PAYING PEOPLE by rushing development ahead 6 months! Uwee hee hee!" Antics are the biggest offender.

But our complacentness about just blithely accepting this as status quo is what prompts them to think they will get away with it.

Make that decision cost them money. Each and every time. It is the only way to reign in that madness.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, that makes some sense. You can't just pile people on one feature and expect it to get anywhere faster; there's a point of diminishing returns. You can, however, spread your project out and hit a bunch of different features.

They may have not spent the time on the ending that they could have, but it doesn't follow that moving people off multiplayer would have helped.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[GmExtremacy]

There is no grounds to say you are a pirate.

"The company still lost potential profit! Used games are bad! Filthy pirates!"

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[LateArthurDent]

just because you can whine really loud it doesn't mean you can dictate to a game developer how to make their games. anyone who thinks the difference in endings is the cut scene color wasn't paying attention to the story at all.

I don't have a problem with the endings not being different enough (although I do have a problem with the difference to the endings essentially boiling down to a last second decision. You should be locked down to an ending based on choices you've made throughout the series).

What I do have a problem with is the lack of a satisfactory ending. Hollywood has historically placed happy endings everywhere they don't belong. People understandably complained about this because when you stick a happy ending on, for example, The Count of Monte Cristo, you just removed the entire moral lesson intended in the novel. Unfortunately, the result of this backlash is that people now think that emotionally complex endings where not everything works out in the end is "artistic" and we should just plop that everywhere. That's the exact same thing Hollywood has been doing with the happy endings, except that you're wrapping everything up with a bow of a different, sadder color.

The ending of a story needs to fit a story. For Edmond Dantes, he needs to accomplish his revenge masterfully, destroy all of his enemies exactly as he planned, only to find his life empty when all is said and done. For Shepard (s)he needs to do what (s)he's always done: beat all the fucking odds and accomplish the mission. If you're playing a Shepard that has sacrificed much along the way via the renegade route, that means a lot of bodies pave the way to final awesomeness. If you've been playing the game by taking the time to save kittens from trees, that means absolutely everything works out, synthetics are saved, organics are saved, the cycle is ended, and the mass relays are intact to usher in a new era of collaboration in the galaxy. Why? Because that's what your audience has invested all this time to achieve. Mass Effect isn't some literary masterpiece, it's an escapist reality where you get to be a badass. It's an action story in a sci-fi world. You don't play the game because you want to know how it ends, you play for the journey, and it better end exactly where you were planning to take that journey.

That's how the other two games operated, and maybe you want to pretend that wrapping a story that had absolutely no depth to it in an ambiguous ending increases the artistic value of the thing, but the rest of us see it as a cop-out and a bait and switch ploy. Those of us who just wanted to shut our brains off for a few hours were forced to turn them back on, and once you turn your brain on to try to figure out what the hell just happened you start asking questions such as *WHY WAS THE NORMANDY INSIDE A MASS EFFECT FIELD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLE FOR EARTH?* Not only is the ending NOT the artistic masterpiece EA is claiming it is, but it's poorly thought out and cliched.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[blahplusplus]

"just because you can whine really loud it doesn't mean you can dictate to a game developer how to make their games. "

When you make a bad game you should be called on your shit. People had expectatinos of what to expect from the story, they weren't expecting happy fair fairy land ending but they did want an ending that made fucking sense to the awesome universe that was created with ME.

It doesn't help that most gamers are braindead and couldn't even begin to detect that the games story was already butchered in mass effect 2. ME2 was a good game and it's proof that most gamers don't really care about plot/story as long as the game is fun and the characters are emotionally engaging.

Everyone who thinks ME's story is good needs to have a good look at how it changed in mass effect 2.

ME2 plot analysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR558wTjOUU

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd argue (strongly), that the ending was brilliant. Chances are that if you think it's shitty you do not truly understand what happened at the end.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Edsj]

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 had the same problem. Unfortunately, EA will get away from this since they were not expecting to have a Mass Effect 4. The Mass Effect brand is damaged, so what? They made a quick buck and that's how it works there. I saw studio after studio being sucked dry by EA and Bioware is no different. I suggest you all never pre-order something EA branded until you get player comments about it. You can't even trust "professional" game reviews of the game (like it happened with ME3).

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Unoriginal_Nickname]

To be totally fair, EA doesn't do this stuff out of malice. EA's acquisitions fail because their executives are miserably incompetent.

Basically this is what happens: some manager plays a game made by a beloved studio or minor competitor, and they get all starry-eyed about the amazing things the studio could do with some extra money. EA buys them, and it works fine for a little while. Then, some executive realizes that their subsidiary's games are really profitable, so they order the subsidiary to expand and work on more games. Other executives order rolling staffing changes based on whatever project sounds popular at the time. Quality slips as team members are overworked and no longer emotionally invested. Meanwhile the key staff, usually the founders, are used to dealing with small teams and small budgets. They allow themselves to be divided across too many projects to be effective managers. No longer constrained by small budgets, their ambitions explode and runaway projects become a major problem. EA's managers try to put the studio back on track by setting firm deadlines, but due to an institutional lack of effective project management or engineering experience, their deadlines are physically impossible. EA publishes a steaming turd in time for Christmas, decides the unit has lost its magic, and shuts it down. EA's accountants use the ordinary/capital losses to offset their gains from sports, and all of the executives take home a fat bonus.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Githaron]

Explain why you thought the ending was brilliant.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[dkf]

The biggest insult is, the ending was obviously rushed, but they had PLEANTY of time to tack on a shitty multiplayer function.

Except the multiplayer isn't shitty (unless you're having network problems or you can't play shooters).

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

fix it? are you fucking kidding me? do you write to your favorite author and demand they change the ending to their novels just because you don't like them? can i tell michael bay he fucked up transformers and i'm entitled to a reshoot of the movie? if you don't like them you're entitled to that opinion and that's it. not to demand changes. there's no "fix it," bioware can just learn from the opinions of their fans and do better next time. if fans don't want to spend their money next time, they learn from that too. but fuck this seemingly prevailing attitude that fans are entitled to a change. did it ever occur to you that there's no concensus on how it should be changed?

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the ending that you made up in your head can be massively different than what they showed us doesn't mean that's what actually happened.

What they gave us made no sense and provided no closure on top of that. Your entire squad just leaves you alone to take on the reaper forces by yourself? Harbinger just leaves you to do whatever you want and flies off to get a cup of coffee? Everyone lives at the end anyway, but you're stuck on Earth and your squad is stuck on some random jungle planet including the two that were with you at the end? EDI survives the destroy option? The fuck?

If you honestly think that ME3 had a legit ending then you must have seen something completely different than what was on my disk.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[gl4ss]

just play the game and then say that it's not tacked on.

retake earth? how about run like a pussy and come back for a stomping and quickie ending produced separately from the rest of the game littered with plot holes and pulling _magic_ card out?

I mean, the endings would be SOMEWHAT better if they didn't include the pre-rendered vids at all! they're so obviously done totally detached from even knowing what use they were going for that they could have been used for a dozen other "explanations" for the end. conveniently the story doesn't actually fork in me towards the end, it's branching together. it's just bullshit because they hyped that it wouldn't. the endings would work better without the videos because in the vids the mechanism for the changes in universe is just simply put "a wizard did it", just better videos would be nice. some actual interaction with the reapers would be nice too. if they changed the ending battle to actually reflect what forces you had allied that would be even better.

the ending is almost as fucked up as with Rage.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason people think they have the right to complain about the ending is because of DLC and stuff like that. Heck, I remember when MegaMan 2 came out and I beat it, only to see Dr. Wily survive and basically have the ending be a repeat of MegaMan 1, (and MM3 would repeat MM2's etc, etc,etc) If you didn't like the ending or didn't think it was clear enough (WHY was Dr. Wily able to turn into an alien? and if it was just an elaborate hologram, which could be implied, then why did touching it damage MegaMan?) too bad, that's what you got. Then fans complained and whined when Broken Steel for Fallout 3 came out, and Bethesda caved to fans complaints, which they should have never done, IMHO, because now the precedent has been set. Honestly, I've always seen games as stories that you get to interact with, but they are someone else's story none-the-less. You didn't write the game's storyline, you have invested no time in its creation, and therefore you have no say in how it plays out except not to buy it.

A more modern day example (instead of Megaman) would be Assassin's Creed. I've already preordered AC3. Did I like the fact that (SPOILERS to those that haven't played the game and are intending to...)

Lucy gets stabbed by Desmond at the end of AC2? No, but I understand that from the story that is being told, the First Civilization could give two craps less about humanity and the only reason they are helping Desmond is because he is the key to their rebirth, in some way, shape or form, and that to them Lucy was in the way. Does this mean that the story sucks? No, it just means I didn't agree with it.

Back on the topic of ME3's ending, I think Bioware should have given the complainers a big middle finger. The complaints I've heard (when people pick the "destroy" option) basically boil down to "Why would EDI lose control of the Normandy and how did the two crewmates that were helping Shepard get back to the Normandy?" I figured these were fairly obvious. First, the God-Child-possible imprint of the first victims of the reapers, they're own creator says that picking the destroy option will destroy ALL synthetic life. EDI is an AI, and therefore synthetic life, she lost control because you chose to destroy her. The second complaint, about the crewmates, you hear a call go out saying everyone is dead or injured. The Normandy probably swooped in, picked up the two injured crewmembers, assumed that since Shepard cannot be found that he/she is Dead, and hightailed it out of there to lick their wounds and fight another day. They're leaving earth through the mass relay to try to regroup and come up with a new plan of attack when Shepard decides how to deal with the threat, and that's why they're shunted out of the mass relay stream mid-jump.

Personally I picked the synthesis option because 1> Shepard is part synthetic anyway, and is still Shepard, 2> EDI and the geth had proven themselves allies to my cause and I could not see a paragon Shepard choosing to sacrifice a whole type of lifeform when another option existed (afterall, that's why Shepard saved the Rachni and cured the Genophage). So my ending consisted of EDI still being present with Joker at the end of the game, with Joker being able to walk easily (one would assume becoming part synthetic would get rid of some of the human weaknesses, possibly changing Joker's disability (depending on how quickly the synthesis took affect, and to what degree). And while it is never explicitly stated, the Illusive Man gets kind of a post-houmous pat on the back, because Shepard was most likely only able to become the catalyst because the Illusive Man made Shepard part-synthetic.

Now I'm no genius, I'm not a fiction writer with a huge imagination. I've read a lot of Sci-Fi and that's about all I've got going for me, and I was able to come up with my own conclusions to the ending. And personally I like it that way, I like to pretend that what I think happened is what happened, so when you see the kid and his/her (it's hard to tel

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, welcome to life. You'll spend between 50-80 years in life only to find out that it's all BS at the end.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

yeah, there is. it's called "other games." try them sometime. vote with your dollar, and use your freedom of speech to explain how you voted. if you don't like the game make your own or buy something else. those are your options. but bioware isn't obligated to do shit about your complaints.

and the decisions do matter. i think a better epilogue might be necessary to enlighten the multitude of morons who don't have the mental capacity to consider the effects of the different outcomes, but that's it. and that's what they've done, here's your epilogue. i don't feel sorry for a single fan who feels entitled to a change. pure idiocy.

buying a game does not create a contractual obligation on the part of the developer to make you like it.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Moheeheeko]

It is out of place and really pointless, Its like adding a puzzle game option to Doom.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[arkhan_jg]

*WHY WAS THE NORMANDY INSIDE A MASS EFFECT FIELD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLE FOR EARTH?*

And in my case, WTF is Garrus doing on board the Normandy doing a mass relay jump when a couple of minutes ago he was running for his life alongside me trying to avoid getting blown away by a Reaper on the final attack? And where the hell did the Illusive Man come from?

And after some 120+ hours game time, it comes down to some deus ex machina responsible for the whole business? I could have shot some power conduit back in Mass Effect 1 and saved us all the trouble?

I can live with an unhappy ending - my shepard giving up her life, anderson's life, even that of everyone on the Normandy to save the galaxy and stop the reapers fits with the story - giving up everything for the mission. But at least have some consequences to my prior actions. It didn't matter one goddamn how well or poorly I did in the build up to retaking earth in single player, it makes basically no difference. If I'd spammed multiplayer to get my 'readiness' rating up higher than its possible to in single player, I'd get a few seconds clip of N7 armour moving, and that's it. No impact upon how many reapers there are, how hard the final missions are, whether my companions live or die at the end. Nuttin.

Worse than that, the final scenes have no relevence or are barely related to any of the game I've just played, or the two predecessors. When my final suicide mission companions somehow end up on the Normandy heading out the Mass Relay when last I saw the ship was deep in the fighting, trying to buy me time... What the hell?? And when you've just stranded millions of aliens in earth orbit due to the destruction of the Relays, you only zoom in on stories told about the Sheppur some time in the future on the planet the Normandy crashed on?

I didn't need a HAPPY ending (though having the happiness relate to how hard I freaking worked or not would be nice) - as said, making a final ultimate sacrifice having said my goodbyes fits - but after the amount of time we've all put in to get here, I thought they'd at least put a bit more effort into having them make SENSE instead of the same weird ending upon your final choice amounting to a button which chooses which colour explosions you get.

It feels like the outsourced the ending to the same guy who came up with the one for Deus Ex: HR. At least with that it was only one game, instead of a series conclusion we've been waiting since 2007 for.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

i did play the game. i played it on the hardest difficulty, so i took my time with it (not that much though -- if anything i'd have them change the difficulty settings). the only plot holes are the ones from interpretation. it's not difficult to plug them by considering another explanation, which there are plenty of thanks to how wide they left the ending open. how many movies and books have plot holes? are you entitled to have each of those changed? ffs, the theory of relativity has plot holes. you don't have to get over it, or change your opinion. i think it's great that people think it sucks. what's stupid is the demand that it be changed. for my part, i simply don't think it was tacked on because i was able to spend a lot of time imagining what was left at the end.

btw, i agree the ending to rage was fucked up, but then again the whole game was a cardboard cutout. funny how you don't see a backlash demanding that that get changed. funny how nobody was enraged by rage.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[thegarbz]

Not to mention the many other literacy taboos of adding another character as the ultimate faceless boss in the last minute of the game. The original Mass Effect did this brilliantly, you spent a lot of time learning about reapers and what they are capable of before being introduced to the fact that there's one currently in the game. But in Mass Effect 3 they just plop some kid out of a dream sequence?

Then there's the whole destruction of the Mass Relay bit. I just spent some 50 hours saving entire species like the Quarians who we've been told can't live of human food who are now stuck in Sol and will likely die out shortly. Or how about the Normandy not only being in a mass effect field, but when the field explodes they somehow quite magically happen to land on a habitable planet and survive, though I'm not sure what the survival rate for a handful of aliens on an unknown alien world may be. The ending is inconsistent garbage that doesn't make sense.

I disagree with you about one thing. Mass Effect is one of the best written and most detailed stores I've ever come across in a computer game. I would say its a literary master piece. Its just a shame that it looks like the last 5 minutes were written by someone who's never even played the first 2 games.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[scot4875]

The way to send EA the message is to buy their games used for 20$

No, the way to send EA a message is to not buy their games at all. There is plenty of shit to do, and plenty of other games to play. You don't need any of EA's games.

Unfortunately, gamers have about 0 resolve when it comes to 'sending a message' to some entity that sucks.

--Jeremy

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

When you make a bad game you should be called on your shit.

absolutely. i defend to the death your right to say what you want and all that yada yada yada. bioware has an opinion too. you DO NOT have a RIGHT to DICTATE to the game developer how to make their games. end of story. please, let them know in your loudest voice how much you hated it. but they don't owe you a change. you are NOT entitled. i'm so ashamed of my fellow gamers.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[lgw]

do you write to your favorite author and demand they change the ending to their novels just because you don't like them?

Happens all the time. Some authors actually write alternate endings as a result, to keep their fans happy. Sometimes Evangelion happens, where the budget runs out and the ending is obvious crap, and then the creators later make the ending they wanted to all along - artistic integrity lies with the creators, not the publishers rushing shit out for a quick buck after all.

Also, when you sell a wrk in a series, there is some implication that the work will be of roughly the same quality as the works that come before. When one takes a real dive, of course the fans feel entitled to what they thought they were paying for.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[PrimalChrome]

I really wonder if that wasn't the intent of the ending. One man cannot save the universe....only effect a very small part within his sphere of influence.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[GmExtremacy]

if you don't like the game make your own or buy something else.

It seems this is a false dilemma. There is a third option, and one that many people seem to be choosing: voice your criticism, and then vote with your dollar. That has a chance of actually changing something.

but bioware isn't obligated to do shit about your complaints.

This is a straw man. No one ever said they were (well, most people didn't). They will either listen or they won't. It's that simple.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[GmExtremacy]

Maybe I missed something, but I don't see where he said that.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Omestes]

Again, they don't have to rewrite it, and I don't have to give them money again. Where is the problem here? Should I be forced to give them money in the future for producing things I didn't enjoy? Are they entitled to my continued patronage?

If an author wrote a book with a horrible ending, I would probably not buy books from them again. I might also be tempted to go online and complain to potential customers, so they don't waste their money either. I do the same for faulty products, bad customer service, and deceptive practices, so I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to do the same for media.

. not to demand changes.

No one is really demanding anything, sure people are whining, and being generally vocal with their dissatisfaction. There are plenty of people saying "Make it better, or I'll never give you money again", which isn't forcing them to do anything, they can side with "integrity" and keep things as they are. EA or Bioware can do whatever the hell they want, and the customer can do whatever the hell they want as well, including saying "fix it, or I'm done with you". No one has a gun to anyone's head, though.

but fuck this seemingly prevailing attitude that fans are entitled to a change. did it ever occur to you that there's no concensus on how it should be changed?

First; they aren't entitled, but they can still ask for it.

Sure there is. Fans want a satisfying, genuine feeling, ending. I don't think that many of them care WHAT that ending is specifically, only that it is an ending that doesn't feel cheap, or like a "to be continued" scamming for DLC, or tacked on due to publication time, or budget, constraints.

And for your information, I have given feedback to game devs, photographers, painters, musicians, and writers over the course of my life, feedback from the position of "mere" customer. 90% of them have appreciated this.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[flimflammer]

To be perfectly honest, I never understood the hatred over this. What did people really expect? Was BioWare supposed to hire some well known supermodel to be Tali or something?

I've been pretty upset with ME3 with the rest of them but this particular instance just feels like people are now just looking for any way they can to rag on Bioware for the game.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[McGuirk]

You kidding? The people upset wanted an in-game model actually shown. They teased the face reveal in at least 3 places, then ended with the crappy 2D image. It was a big let-down.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Sarius64]

I think the "developers" are just lucky that the ending wasn't revealed at ComicCon. The thousands of people that stood in line for a 10 minute preview to the point that the group (alone) shut down that section of San Diego would have a much more personal message to deliver to the entire EA organization.

I'm sad I purchased three copies of this game (two collector editions) for self and family. The outright lies by EA at ComicCon will definitely prevent me from ever purchasing another product with EA on the label; period.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[manwargi]

I'd heard another major complaint about that photo was that it's a plot hole-- the last time the quarians were able to safely live on a planet without their suits was a thousand years ago.

I figured that there were too many people expecting a sexy secret, but I however was hoping they wouldn't just make the quarians into purple humans. It was bad enough the asari looked almost exactly like humans. I would have liked quarians to be very alien looking in some way, and perhaps in particular Tali's appearance never being shown in-game. A nice condition about her character was that since her immune system was so vunerable and her appearance never revealed, a Shepard that romances her does so because of who she is on the inside, even if quarians turned out to be hideous and covered in bed sores. That continuity error of a photo was not only a copout, it cheapened that theme.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

This was a no-win situation for Bioware, no matter what they came up with it wouldn't have lived up to the fan expectations.
But snagging a random pic off the net does seem a bit lazy.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[stewartjm]

I was sad I pre-ordered a collector's edition as well. But by sheer chance, I had ordered it from Amazon.com, and they were offering full refunds on Mass Effect 3 purchases, even opened copies. I hung onto my copy until BioWare's first official response , where Ray made it quite clear that EA/BioWare had no intention of admitting any faults with the product. I went through Amazon's standard automated return system and received a full refund after shipping it back. Supposedly EA/Origin, and even some Best Buys were doing full refunds as well. One key phrase for increasing the likely-hood of a the full refund is something along the lines of "the game did not live up to promises made by the publisher".

It might be worth checking to see if you can return any of your copies. If nothing else, make sure to sell all of your copies used. The only message EA truly understands is money or it's lack, so send the right message.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Githaron]

They might not make a Mass Effect 4 but they will make other games. I am fed up with EA. While I am sure plenty of people will keep doing business with them, I will not. They don't respect their customers.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

i don't think you've been paying attention.

There is a third option, and one that many people seem to be choosing: voice your criticism, and then vote with your dollar.

i've been saying this in numerous other posts. in those posts i've said voice your criticism but lose the sense of entitlement. buy something else = vote with your dollar.

No one ever said they were (well, most people didn't).

there's been a huge backlash of people demanding that the ending be changed, with one going so far as to complain to the FCC.

They will either listen or they won't. It's that simple.

that's what i've been saying in response to the loud majority who want the ending changed.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

posting anonymously because i ran out of submits...

Again, they don't have to rewrite it, and I don't have to give them money again.

that's what i've been saying.

Should I be forced to give them money in the future for producing things I didn't enjoy? Are they entitled to my continued patronage?

show me where i suggested any of that. i think we agree here.

they aren't entitled, but they can still ask for it.

we agree they aren't entitled, and we agree people have free speech. it's the attitude of entitlement that i'm against.

And for your information, I have given feedback to game devs, photographers, painters, musicians, and writers over the course of my life, feedback from the position of "mere" customer. 90% of them have appreciated this.

i advocate this. where is the problem here? between you and me, i think it's just that you misunderstand that we agree.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[GmExtremacy]

Well, you're saying this in response to people who don't seem to be saying that Bioware has an obligation to change the ending. I've seen very people who said anything to that effect.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[smellotron]

you're entitled to that opinion, and nothing more. that's the issue here. bioware has no obligation to change what you don't like.

True, but that's not the full story. No, you will probably not get very far by demanding a refund from Bioware or by threatening to force them (via lawsuit) to change the ending. But most people complaining are people who have purchased Bioware games in the past, and are likely to purchase them in the future. The company is absolutely free to alienate its user base; it's their funeral. The free DLC is an attempt to make amends precisely because many people voiced their opinions in forums like this.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[SuiteSisterMary]

They could have, at the very least, made the photo's hands match the character model.

They took the picture, and 'shopped out the ring and pinky fingers. Only when you look at a quarian's hands, they have a thumb, a finger, a large gap, and another finger. Like chopping out the middle and ring finger.

It was just half-assed and stupid. Make the face look like the voice actress. Or something. Something other than a stock photo with lens flare and poor 'shopping.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[SuiteSisterMary]

To be fair, it's very strongly implied that different races see Asari as ideal female versions of themselves.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[blahplusplus]

lol you're proof most gamers are braindead. No wonder you posted AC. You just confirmed it with your contortions.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[murdocj]

I only played ME 1 and enjoyed it, but I don't understand all the raving about the characters and the choices you make. The characters felt very flat compared to the companions in DA:O.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[V-similitude]

there's been a huge backlash of people demanding that the ending be changed, with one going so far as to complain to the FCC.

Like you said, they're using their right to free speech. I too demand that Bioware change the ending . . . or else I won't buy any more of their games. No one says they're obligated to change it, there's always the implicit or explicit assumption that failure to satisfy your consumers' demands, simply means they won't be your consumers anymore. You seem to be saying on the one hand people should be free to voice their feelings on the ending, but on the other they should only do it in a way that doesn't tell Bioware what they actually want (ie a new ending). Makes no sense.

As for the FCC, there's some valid consideration if they actually advertised 16 "vastly" different endings that depended on your choices in the game (as they seemed to be in interviews). If that's the case, then people are almost certainly entitled to refunds (and maybe damages?) for false advertising.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[V-similitude]

God. Who's saying they're entitled?!? Where do you get this from? I'd love to see where you seem to think everyone is acting all entitled over this.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[echnaton192]

Bullshit. http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10056886 explains, what was promised / advertised. They clearly did not deliver what was promised.

And don't give me that artistic freedom-bullshit. Artistic freedom is a constitutional right in Germany, barring the censoring of titles like Natural Born Killers, so I value this right. BUT - and this is important, this right does not stand alone. There are other rights. If you order a country side painting and get a city with no green in it, then you don't have to pay, because the contract was not fullfilled.

In other words: Had Bioware not promised very different endings, the whining of the other gamers would be whining and that's it. But this does not apply here, because they made specific claims they did not hold up to. And this is when the artist is not so free anymore. What is so annoying is the fact that people actually paid with their money and their time to get the best ending. Some used their shephards for 5 years. What Bioware and EA did here is outragious. And to have the chuzpa to claim artistic freedom over an ending that consists solely of false advertising is unbelievable.

I don't play 3rd person shooter, so I am not affected. But this is about holding the line as gamers. Clearly I don't count you as a gamer, because your posts miss the point by miles and you have no feeling for decency.

To me, this is about false advertising. And it is about a bad gaming experience in order to hold the timeframe despite the fact that people in charge promised something else. Should Bioware deliver an ending I count as holding up to the promises, I shall buy other games from Bioware. If not, I won't buy Bioshock 3 and everything else EA has to offer. They have to understand that "artistic freedom" ends when the artist acts like an entrepeneur and makes false claims. To me, they could have get away with it IF they did not make those false claims.

Had they said nothing about the ending or something like "whatever you do effects the plot, but in the end the faith of Shepherd is already written, so your achievements make no big difference in the end", I wouldn't be as pissed as I am. But they explicitly claimed the end to be different for every gamer and that all your choices make a difference in the final battle. The cake is a lie.

Don't do false claims and you are as an "artist" free to do with your product nearly everything you like. But artistic freedom does NOT give you the right to betrayal, because your rights and the rights of your customers are in a conflict here. And as much as I believe that games are art I do NOT believe that betrayal should be allowed just because it's a new kind of art. There are court decisions containing paintings or music that were ordered but the product was not to the customers demands. If nothing is agreed to, you could give him everything, including a white cube in a white room (meaning an empty picture) or something of equal artistic value. But you will not promise me a forest and deliver a cty with no trees in it. Simple as that.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[echnaton192]

i don't think you've been paying attention.

There is a third option, and one that many people seem to be choosing: voice your criticism, and then vote with your dollar.

i've been saying this in numerous other posts. in those posts i've said voice your criticism but lose the sense of entitlement. buy something else = vote with your dollar.

I WILL vote with my euro. But first I want Bioware to understand that they should not pull another stunt like this. And I guess they got this message. I'll wait what they deliver. If it's acceptable, I'll buy other Bioware titles. If it's not, I won't buy their games anymore. It really IS that simple. We have seen worse endings than this one. But in those games nobody was promised a better ending. No one was promised a happy ending, so killing Shepherd is a valid option. Let's wait what happens.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds almost like the play that ended up happening with Obsidian and KotOR II...

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet... How about not buying at all...

Even the purchase in the manner described contributes to a network effect that they profit by. I would see it go down in flames over crap like this.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

well they were told to retreat after they thought everyone was dead and didn't make it too the portal so it kinda makes sense why they were there honestly

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[ravenshrike]

Clearly Harbinger flew off to shoot some heroin because he became overwhelmed with the utter ennui of his Reaper existence.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Electricity Likes Me]

This will end up very much damaging Bioware though (as it probably should). I mean, they will still sell games, but I'm very sure that I'll be waiting till player reviews hit before thinking about buying them.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Pinky's Brain]

George Lucas succumbed to himself, just like Mac Walters succumbed to himself ... the idiots in question are the writers ... who paid fuck all attention to what their audience wanted.

The majority of the ME3 "idiot" audience wanted a simple feel good ending ... if they had listened to them we wouldn't have had this mess ...

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

*** Assassin's Creed Spoiler***

Lucy was a double agent for the Templars, that's why Desmond killed her.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[metrix007]

Since you seem to know better than all of us "morons" complaining about the endings, perhaps you could step off your pedestal for a second and enlighten us? Just how were the endings so very different?

It seems that in every case, no matter how many war assets you have or what is chosen at the end, the mass effect network is destroyed. Synthetics survive regardless. Your crew is randomly stranded on another planet. No further details are given about the force behind the reapers or why synthetics and organics cannot live together.

A huge point actually is that even if you broker peace between the quarian and the geth, it has absolutely no effect on this major plot point.

That's the issue people have. Not with the artists choice to tell the story and end the mass relays. But with the decisions made over 3 games played over a minimum of 60 hours are essentially inconsequential.

Tell me. Does a female Renegade shephered who saved Wrex, Exiled Tali, destroyed the heretics, brokered peace between the quarian and the geth, romanced liara, let kaidan die, destroyed the collector base have a different ending from a male paragon shepherd who let wrex die, prevented tali from being exiled, chose the geth over the quarian, saved the collector base, romanced ashley and chose to control the reapers?

Because if the endings are different, I, and thousands of others can not reasonably see how. That is why we feel cheated. That is why we feel the product does not deliver as it was advertised.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[GmExtremacy]

Agreed. I think the best way is to not buy it new, not pirate it, and not buy it used. The former helps them directly, while the latter two could provide free advertising.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you show me where the majority of the ME audience told the game makers they wanted a feel good ending before the game was made? I don't feel sorry for those who can't handle deep, ambiguous closings that make you think and end on a sad note. Real life is like that. I applaud BioWare for having the balls to make a video game story rich enough to put David Jaffe's narrow-minded comments on storytelling in games in its place: the dumpster. How happy can the ending be when the main character is another analogue for Jesus (come on, Shepard/shepherd, saves mankind, etc.) like Neo in the Matrix, or many others. I never heard people demand the Coen brothers remake the Matrix because of plot holes or ambiguity.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[ultranova]

I really wonder if that wasn't the intent of the ending. One man cannot save the universe....only effect a very small part within his sphere of influence.

Arkhipov did. And of course on the other side of the equation are Hitler, Stalin and Mao, who's shadow still makes the world a worse place than it needs to be. But then again, imagine a world with Hitler but no Stalin, where the Nazis would have marched through a still-agrarian Russia with ease and likely won World War II.

The thing is, while most decisions made by most people most of the time are pretty much meaningless, every now and then destiny really does hang by a single thread. And the first two games do set Shepard up as someone who is constantly there when it does, to the extent that it's noticed in-universe by the Illusive Man. So changing this at a crucial moment would, in fact, be quite strange, and would certainly make for a bad ending (but would make for a fine mid-plot twist if, for example, it turned out that some entity was using the main character all along).

Then again, I haven't played ME3, so this is all speculation on my part.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Pinky's Brain]

Real life indeed is tragic ... exactly why the majority of people don't want that shit in their entertainment. As for DEEP, that's just an excuse to not have to fabricate an internally consistent story and introduce needless complexity while letting the audience try to paper over the holes. (Want to bet the epilogue just concentrates on the rest of the crew and leaves the clusterfuck near Earth without closure?) Which is of course bad enough in and of itself, but doing it 15 minutes before the end makes it go from bad to atrocious.

I don't understand the reference to the Matrix ... it ended with Neo essentially becoming superman inside the computer ... it's open ended rather than tragic ended.

The original ME writer wanted to end the games essentially as TTGL ... this was a much better plan ... better to rip off something good than invent something bad.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Elldallan]

There is a third option, and one that many people seem to be choosing: voice your criticism, and then vote with your dollar.

i've been saying this in numerous other posts. in those posts i've said voice your criticism but lose the sense of entitlement. buy something else = vote with your dollar.

The problem with this is that as long as people are not painfully vocal about why they're not gonna buy the next BioWare game EA will just blame future failures on piracy, that is the thingsalways seems to work, either something is a huge success or it's all because of the pirates.

No one ever said they were (well, most people didn't).

there's been a huge backlash of people demanding that the ending be changed, with one going so far as to complain to the FCC.

People are not neccessarily complaining to the FCC to have the ending changed but because BioWare ever since the release of ME2 has hyped that because they don't have to worry about the next game the ending for ME3 is going to really varied and all over the place and the decisions from the previous games are gonna play a large role in the ending you get. All that hype now turns out to be blatant lies and that makes all that hype false advertisement(which is criminal and should be punished), the only thing that matter is how many war assets you managed to scrape together and the ending while yes the potential implications of Shepard's decision is big(that is not said outright but just implied), the actual ending sequences are pretty much just palette-swapped versions of each others with plot holes so big you could drive Harbinger through them.

A lot of people would probably be fine with a downer ending(well there are ofcourse some people that want sunshine and rainbows etc) because that has been indicated ever since the ending of ME1(Sovereign was just a single reaper and yet it took the combined military might of much of the galaxy to bring it down and now there are hundreds or thousands of them munching up the galaxy...). But the fact that the endings breaks with or even outright contradicts much of the already established canon content is not acceptable without a reasonable explanation and BioWare provides none of that. Because of this and all the huge plot holes makes it seem completely random and tacked on at the last minute to meet a deadline(much like Kotor 2 although Obsidian did a much better job than BioWare has done).

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Dixie_Flatline]

Go to youtube and search for 'indoctrination theory'. You'll see what AC is talking about.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Elldallan]

No that makes absolutely no sense, everyone knows that this is it, they have to press the advantage of having united the combined might of the entire galaxy and fight to their last breath even if the combined might of the galaxy fails they "wont go quietly into the night" and they will take enough reapers with them to give the next cycle a better chance at survival. There is no second chance, there is no beating the reapers through low intensity warfare and everyone in those fleets know it.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Elldallan]

Yes that would actually make the ending a well thought thru one but I'd still call BioWare out on being cheapskates(depending on whats actually in this new DLC and wether or not they release another one that will cost money) because if the Indoctrination theory is correct(and you picked the correct ending) the actual ending still have not been resolved, Shepard will still be at the base of that pillar of light and the reapers will still be around.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Elldallan]

Well indoctrination theory still means that there are no actual ending(atleast not if you picked the one that is the "correct" choice) so BioWare is not completely off the hook yet if indoctrination is true.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[nu1x]

> Mass Effect is one of the best written and most detailed stores I've ever come across in a computer game.

Do you take into account Planescape: Torment, and, to a lesser extent, Fallout 1 & 2 ?

Both made by a company that propelled the now-Bioware to its greatness, Black Isle.

Oh how far have we fallen.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

I had a hard time understaind what the photo was actually. Since the quarians hadn's been outside unmasked for a couple of hundred years before Tali was born, I couldn't understand what this photo was. A *huge* plothole if you ask me. Any ME fan would never guess that that photo is meant to be tali, due to where it's taken.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

The epilogue really proves that!

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

Actually, it's not limited to just that.
On the final mission, I too Liara (who I'd romanced) with me.
No one else made it to the citadel/the-blue-beam, since everyone else died.

At the end of the ending video, I can see her exiting the Normandy.
I've yet to understand how she revived, got away from three of four reapers on earth, made in back to the normandy in such a short time!

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

Not true actually. I haven't purchased any EA games (excepto for Mass Effect 1-2-3) for year. After ME3, it's clear what bioware has been completely assimilated by EA. I'm never buying or recomending any EA or Bioware games every again.
Even if a game if promising, I can't be sure they won't mutilate it in the sequel, just like what happened to ME. ME1 was hard sci-fi. ME3 is totally inconsistent.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

Sadly, some things do change depending on earlier choices. For example, Mordin's survival depends on choices you made on ME1 and ME2 (kill wrex and save the formula). There are other small parts like this that vary according to previous games. Sadly, the ending is not one of these part.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

In Mass Effect 1, it takes the entire human fleet, plus some others to kill a single reaper, and it was only because it's defenses where low while it docked into The Citadel.
It makes no sense that >1 reaper is killed in the final battle for earth.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Elldallan]

No not really, it was sovereign plus a sizable geth fleet against The Alliance's 1st, 3rd, 5th fleets(The Alliance had at least 7 fleets prior to ME3) plus a sizable portion of the Citadel Fleet(not all of it though, a big part was out patroling Mass Relays). In ME2 the Alliance did not have even a single dreadnought and the citadel navy presumably had the Destiny Ascension and maybe a few others, When ME3 starts The Alliance has 8 dreadnoughts, the Turian Hedgemony has 39, the Asari Republics have 20, the Salarian Union have 16 and the Vol Protectorate has 1, no one knows how many the Geth have and the Quarian Flotilla have their liveships(of which there are 3) fitted with dreadnought class mass accelerators(but lacks the heavy armor and shielding a typical dreadnought have). Cruisers and frigates make up the bulk of the citadel races military and are much more numerous than dreadnoughts(in ME1 the Alliance had ~200 vessels)
Plus significant advances in technology have been made since the battle of the citadel in ME1 from reverse engineering stuff from Sovereign such as the Thanix cannon etc. So while the odds are very long it's not so bad that they shouldn't even be able to take down a single reaper.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

Granted, they shouldn't be unable to take down a single reaper. But remember there where enough to "[...] darken the sky of every world". One, or a thousand are insignificant numbres. Vigil also made a similar remark, IIRC.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

Actually, we do. Bioware, on several occasions promised a lot of things story-wise that were not real in the end.

For example, they explicitly stated that the ending would not be based on some last-minute choice, but be based on all the decisions made throughout the game. (LOL!) They said the outcome of the game could vary greatly since they did not have to think about a sequel and how to merge those endings in future. This link says it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPelM2hwhJA

So while I cannot dictate how they make their game, I *can* complain that they did not keep their word and deliver what they promised. People decide if they pay for something according to what is promised, you know.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[IcyNeko]

There are actually 5 options

Paragon
Neutral
Renegade
Paragon-Only (If you have enough paragon points)
Renegade-Only (If you have enough renegade points)

Sometimes, there's a sixth option to get more information. But no one really chooses that.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[IcyNeko]

At the end of ME2, EDI downloads specs of Harbringer from the Collector Base (this is what Joker hands Shepard at the end, assuming Shep survives. If not, Joker still has this technical info).

When the Normandy was handed over to the Alliance, these specs were handed over as well. That means the Alliance/Citadel council races had specifications on how to kick reapers in the teeth. Sure, not all their weapons could have been upgraded, but some may have had time to do some massive improvements.

Not to mention all of the council races upgraded their fleets and added dreadnought-class warships en masse.

Plus recall that 1 Maw Thresher took out a reaper... the Quarian fleet took out a reaper and in the battle for Earth, the entire galactic victory armada had combined navies of many, many races.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[IcyNeko]

Assimilation is the wrong genre. This isn't star trek.

The word you're looking for is Indoctrinated.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[IcyNeko]

Well, the comparison to the Matrix is pretty apt.

In Mass Effect, you have the main conflict, which is "We need to stop the reapers from killing all advanced races". This carries over three games. In the end, in the last 15 minutes and 14 lines of dialogue, the conflict objective completely changes to "You need to choose whether to condemn all sentient machines, control them (but lose yourself in the process... essentially merging yourself with the reapers -- else, how will you control them post-mortem?), or "return to the source" and add your own energy into the collective stream and force conformity to all life in the universe.

In the Matrix, Neo's entire conflict was "We need to stop the matrix/Agents/machine/Colonel sanders from enslaving humanity/destroying zion". That is, up until the last portion of the second movie, where an abruptly new character, Colonel Sanders, changes the decision to "Join the source and continue the cycle or watch us destroy humans." Sure, you can argue that they sorta did introduce the Architect earlier in the movie, but it was only hinted to here and there. You don't really meet him until the end. And even then, he replaces the main villain? Sorta kinda? Or offers a different kind of salvation? It's a really weak ending.. a deus ex machina.

In both cases, a last-minute introduced character offers an universal reboot with limited scope options. And for Mass Effect, a game built on the premise of your choice impacting the universe, to have that completely retconned in an ending where 2/3 choices involved rejoining the source, it's.. very weak. And Deus Ex machina?

Personally, when the kid tells me I can ONLY kill ALL of the reapers. Or ONLY do this. or that. with no varying level of options and controls, it just felt wrong. And for the starchild to watch the galaxy evolve around itself, including have evidence that AI and Biological units can coexist walking in its superstructure (hello EDI/Joker, Legion/Tali) and for it to continue on it's assumption that humans and robots can't coexist.. makes little sense. On top of that, the circular logic of "Machines kill advanced species so they can't create machines that kill advanced species" just hurts my brain. No, it's not that it is a thing I cannot comprehend. It's just poor logic. It's sloppy logic.

Instead, I took Option 4. I sat there emptying my clip at the starchild. Sure, the war raged on, but at least my shepard did something that is true to his nature: he used violence to solve stupidity. Oh yeah!

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Kelbear]

She was in a place where she could take off her mask and not die. If you've seen the picture in-game, you should know what place I'm talking about. The game spends quite a lot of time in this place, and talking about why it's so significant.

Also, she's taken her mask off in the past without dying, she just takes risks when she does so. She got some sniffles but not much else.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Kelbear]

I was surprised to find out that people were upset about this. I actually liked getting a photo instead of an in-game rendering. They were able to present this secret in a special way and an intimate private context in their relationship. I mean, Shepard's already seen her face, so seeing Tali's face in-game might be special to the player, but it wouldn't be a significant event to Shepard in the game's context. This way, they set it up to mean something to both Shepard, Tali, and the player at the same time. The fact that the picture could even be taken in that spot was an acknowledgement of a very significant thing Shepard had just done for her, so framing that moment in a picture makes for a very special memento for Shepard to thank him for it.

Besides, while ME3's faces looks much better than the previous iterations, I still think the photo looked better.

(I also noticed that in ME1 and ME2, Shepard was the player's avatar, but in ME3, the game sets up Shepard as a separate character that has his/her own emotional responses unprompted by the player. It bothered me a little at first to have them decide what Shepard is feeling, but I got used to it.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

Just how were the endings so very different?

the tl;dr version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmXGAtjv5aQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ7bsIpEKIg

the "if you care to know as much as you care to ask" version:

it's obvious. the endings are so open ended they're left up to interpretation, while still being pretty explicit about what the consequences are. the peace between quarian and geth was no different than the krogan/turian alliance. it was about getting more war assets, basically, which by itself drastically alters things in the end. if you don't make the war asset quota the entire earth is razed and the normandy doesn't survive its escape through the relay.

synthesis ending:
saving the geth wasn't a waste per se, anymore than saving earth or other species, if the synthesis ending is chosen. the idea with that ending is to stop the 50k year cycle. if you get the war asset quota and choose synthesis you get a bonus ending scene very similar to the vague ending of The Grey starring liam neeson. in a split second post-credits scene of that movie you get a glimpse of liam neeson's head resting on the body of the alpha wolf he lunged at just prior to the credits. is he alive? was he mortally wounded? the wolf appears to be breathing, but is it also mortally wounded? even if neeson's character did survive, what about the remaining wolves in the pack? wasn't he getting close to civilization at the end? all kinds of endings can be imagined, but it's up to you to decide. same with these ME3 endings. i think it would have been neat to somehow tie in the geth free will thing with the DNA synthesis but the ways things went in other choices i also think it would have been a bit convoluted to force that connection. in the synthesis ending, shepard shows signs of life, and joker and EDI show signs of being synthesized.

control ending:
in this ending, you choose the indoctrination that the illusive man also chose. there is no "deux ex machina" here, the catalyst kid is simply the reaper leader (i'd be kinda disappointed if i didn't meet him -- it's like neo meeting the architect). the catalyst kid laughs at you as you allow yourself to become indoctrinated. the first appearance of the kid in the beginning sort of implies (in hindsight) that the reapers were attempting to indoctrinate him. the kid also implies that indoctrination is necessary to control the reapers -- who themselves replace organic life while archiving their evolutionary accomplishments and waiting for the next cycle. with shepard's position as potential messiah, he's the best candidate for this control, hence why he's spared and worth the efforts of indoctrination. the geth had acquired free will, so they had to be destroyed in a "control" ending. the synthetics wanted control.

destroy ending:
here you destroy all reapers including the catalyst. in the control ending the kid is still there for his victory laugh but in this ending he's gone. catalyst/reapers dead. as in dead, dead. the reapers on earth don't just get up and leave, they are dead.

the relays:
no matter what happens, the relays are destroyed and if you had enough war assets joker crash lands on some garden world. that's the environmental situation. the political one, the one that asks what just happened and what happens next, was a situation chosen by shepard:

if you didn't have enough war assets, the relays destroy everything when they blow up. this is the "you didn't try very hard so everything dies, try again" ending.

if you chose control, the reapers still exist and are scattered throughout the galaxy, presumably with the ability to rebuild the relays during the next cycle. all star systems next to relays are destroyed, putting (most) organic life back at reset with the exception of joker and co. and whoever's left on earth. yeah it's inconve

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/04/06/1947205/bioware-announces-free-dlc-to-add-more-to-the-mass-effect-3-endings#comment_link_39624243

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

assuming this is in reply to my quote:

you DO NOT have a RIGHT to DICTATE to the game developer how to make their games. end of story. please, let them know in your loudest voice how much you hated it. but they don't owe you a change. you are NOT entitled.

you start by saying:

Actually, we do.

and close by saying:

So while I cannot dictate how they make their game, I *can* complain that they did not keep their word and deliver what they promised.

and so i think we agree. thanks for playing.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

shhhhhh

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

no, what i'm saying is there's a difference between saying "your game sucks and i want a different ending" (which, the last part i simply think is an incredibly stupid and naive thing to ask for) and saying "your game sucks so now you owe me." it's obvious if you're complaining about the game's ending that you would have liked a different one. just saying the game sucks will suffice, if that's the only message you're getting across. anything more is exactly like a demand, which is a manifestation of entitlement. you don't demand things you don't think you're entitled to. nobody was politely asking for a new ending, it's pretty much all been demands. and i still believe the correct answer to the polite request is no.

a different scenario is where you pay for something that is actually custom for you (hint: the choice system in the game does not make the game custom to you, despite any illusion that you perceive). say you get your car painted and they do the wrong color. you can voice your opinion that the color sucks, but you'd also have the right to demand that the work be redone. consuming a video game is not even remotely close to having your car painted in terms of what is intended solely for you. the crux of the argument against making new endings is that it will ruin the endings for other people who were happy with the way it went. the endings really were open ended enough for anyone to take from it what they wanted to be the long term outcome of each ending offered.

in my analogy, it's like asking that not only do you want your blue ford mustang painted red, but everyone's blue ford mustang painted red, and fuck everyone else's opinion of their car color because it's just you that isn't happy, for your own reasons. let's say, for the sake of argument that you couldn't paint your own car, just like consumers can't edit the code of the game -- if ford promised 9 different colors of mustangs, and they turned out to be 3 different shades of 3 different colors, they wouldn't actually be wrong. you could get pissed and voice your displeasure saying you only see 3 colors, but you'd be out of line to demand they take away hunter green for purple. a billion other people want their own shade swapped out for their own color. no concensus, no standard. get it? bioware did the equivalent of giving you 3 different shades of 3 different colors. there were at least 2 different ways to interpret what the consequences were for each ending, plus what happens in each ending if you didn't get enough war assets collected. people want a wildly different outcome for whether or not miranda died or wrex died or whether you fucked jack, and that's just asinine. if you choose the destroy ending you get to see the squad mates you chose saved. if you chose the synthesis ending you saw joker and EDI synthesized. control ending has squad mates saved like the destroy ending, except shepard is now a reaper instead of a martyr. that's a big diff.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

quoting myself elsewhere:

buying a game does not create a contractual obligation on the part of the developer to make you like it.

shepard's fate isn't written one way. in one ending he's (just) a martyr, in another he's alive and indoctrinated, in another he's the human "catalyst" for a new cyborg race, and in another he's failed completely. and there was no explicit claim that every gamer's ending would be different from everyone else's (forgetting the fact that that's impossible anyway). people interpreted it that way, and sadly signing your name on your credit card receipt is not the same as a single employee signing his interview as a contract. artistic freedom absolutely does give you the right to do whatever the fuck you want. michael bay's teenage alien ninja turtles is proof of that.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

3 choices is more than the 2 (paragon or renegade) they gave you in any other scene. 1/3 of the endings was you being duped into being indoctrinated like the illusive man was. 1/3 of the endings was about you merging all organic and synthetic life together - no reapers, no humans, just cyborgs. 1/3 of the endings was about you destroying the reapers at the cost of most of organic life. the deus ex machina was no such thing, just the last boss. you could defeat it with a choice, instead of shooting the glowing weak spot like most games.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[IcyNeko]

ACtually, if you follow Indoctrination Theory, 2/3 of the choices probably lead to indoctirnation. The only question is.. do you become their Saren champion or do you become a Husk. I feel like Synergy = Husk. :)

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

the beauty of the synthesis choice is that there are so many possible outcomes. the scene with joker and EDI shows the synthesis was successful.

look at his eyes here, while he's normal. just pause when it loads, it's on 0:00. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21w6XrLVXb0

now look here starting at 20:55 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmXGAtjv5aQ. it's my opinion EDI's posture and movement were meant to seem more human (organic) as well. if that's what happened to joker, i think that's also what happened to shepard, probably seconds before he was obliterated by the energy stream he jumped into.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

While all this speculation is true, there are huge gaps left to fill in the enging.
Both Sovereign and the other reaper you killed explained that their reasons are beyond your comprehension. The authors couldn't come up with something that fit the description, so they made the kid give a crappy 4 minutes explanation at the end.

Go re-do the dialog with Sovereign. It does not, at all, fit the kid's explanation. They despise organic life, and are themselves, "the pinnacle of evolution". Not pawns to a sensless scheme.

Mass Effect is hard sci-fi - except for those last minutes. Merging your synthetic parts with your DNA makes absolutely no sense at all. Why does stuff look like it had circuits on it? And how the hell did that come from Shepard DNA? He didn't have "altered DNA", he had implants.

The ending simply does not stand at the same level as the rest of the game. What you did in all three games doesn't change the outcome at all, you pick it at the last moment.

If you pick the "destroy" ending, organic races are doomed. Every ship, and a galaxy worth of fleets are left in the Sol system, which has really no resources, and all the other planets in the universe have almost no ships and are completely cut off.

Shepard was in a 44km long space station when it blew up in space, and is later seen in rubble, BREATHING?
Did he fall into the earth and survive a several-thousand--km-long fall, or is he breathing in space, floating!? How can that *possibly* make sense.

Also, the geth only survive in the synthesis ending, which again, makes no sense in any way (at least it's not hard sci-fi like the rest of the entire games). How is purging the geth acceptable in a "good" ending. They were the really really good guys (every time they fought, was in self defense, and had no problem forgiving their agressors when the time came).

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

in the destroy ending, not all organic races are doomed, just some. the price of getting rid of the reapers was the sacrifice of a lot of organic races. life's tough.

as for shepard's survival, first they explained that he was already more than human after the illusive man resurrected him. second, he only shows signs of life in the rubble in the control ending. he kind of has to survive, or the whole "control" thing didn't work out. the illusive man was a full blown cyborg after indoctrination. pretty reasonable to assume here that shepard is also part machine.

with the geth after synthesis, they just recently acquired free will as an ability, and now we can assume that whatever it is we think is so great about being "alive" is also granted to the geth.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

What place is that? Quarian almost never take off their suit or masks, it's not even common with family. There's no mention of an open space (a planet, probably, due to how the sun is seen) where she may have taken it off. She has no immune system, so would have died on any planet I can think of.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

My bad, you're completely right (that was rather lame of me).

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

That I can't *do* something (lack of means) doesn't mean that I don't think I deserve the right to.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

i know. that's the problem, your attitude and those who share it. what you have the right to (your opinion) and what you think you have the right to (forcing a creator to create what you want) are totally different. buying the game is not a contract to tell the game writer what the story should be. you're not commissioning the work under your direction. if we all the had the right to make someone change their creation because we didn't like it, that person would never create another thing because that person would spend the rest of their natural (and probably substantially shorter) life trying please everyone. i'm so glad bioware has the spine to stand up to the whiners. an appreciative fan will say, "i didn't like it. i might not buy your next game based on this." an unappreciative gamer will say, "i didn't like it, and i want you to change it or i definitely won't buy your next game." while the whiners say, "i didn't like it and the world is subject to how i feel so i'm entitled to a different ending and i demand you appease me. here's my gimme-gimme list." which one are you?

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

straw man #1:

Real life indeed is tragic ... exactly why the majority of people don't want that shit in their entertainment.

fail. you fail so hard it's just mind blowing. so by your logic, how in the world could a heavy metal album full of themes about physical, emotional and sexual abuse go platinum? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korn_(album)#Reception. how did a movie like the green mile, with the ending it had, rank #2 at the box office? or how about the movie i referred to earlier, the grey. that's not a happy ending and was #1 its opening weekend. nobody went to that looking for comedic relief.

As for DEEP, that's just an excuse to not have to fabricate an internally consistent story and introduce needless complexity while letting the audience try to paper over the holes.

are you high?

straw man #2:

(Want to bet the epilogue just concentrates on the rest of the crew and leaves the clusterfuck near Earth without closure?)

yeah let's waste time arguing about something that hasn't been released yet, as if whatever bullshit you're assuming is actually true. i have no trouble believing you didn't under the matrix either. i feel sorry for you. ps, i have a straw man for you. nobody gives a fuck about ttgl.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Kelbear]

*spoilers*

By now I'm guessing nobody else will be reading this article so:

The photo was taken on Rannoch, the Quarian homeworld, where they evolved with a weak immune system since virtually all of the germs on the planet were either harmless or they had a symbiotic relationship with Quarians. The game notes that quarians would take time to fully re-adapt to the quarian homeworld, but brief exposure would not necessarily be fatal. (She'd already survived suit exposure via gunshot, and extended...contact with Shepard by this point).

The photo becomes available to the player immediately after the player finishes Shepard's mission to Rannoch, the player just has to talk to Tali after the mission, at which time she tells him/her to go see what she left in his/her room.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

She should have died if exposed unsuited to the open enviroment of a planet, heck, she hat to take tons of meds to even be in the presence of a simple person, and as stated before thoughout the series, they often die if their suits are damaged in battle.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

as for shepard's survival, first they explained that he was already more than human after the illusive man resurrected him. second, he only shows signs of life in the rubble in the control ending. he kind of has to survive, or the whole "control" thing didn't work out. the illusive man was a full blown cyborg after indoctrination. pretty reasonable to assume here that shepard is also part machine.

Doesn't matter on which ending he lived, on all of them the citadel blows up. Yup, a huge 44km long space station completely blows up.
He can
a) Be in space (how can he breathe??)
b) Have fallen into earth (how are there still enough parts joined together to manage to brethe after that fall?)

The Illusive man was part cyborg because of the operation he underwent on that base where you kill Mirada's dad (can't recall the name). Shepard wasn't at all close to something like that.

with the geth after synthesis, they just recently acquired free will as an ability, and now we can assume that whatever it is we think is so great about being "alive" is also granted to the geth.

No, they adquired free will long ago. It was back when they Quarians initially started was to be precise.

I don't think purging the geth can be considered "good", they're, ironically, one of the most "humane" species, and one of the ones that could help the most rebuild really (remember how fast they helped rebuild on Rannoc?)

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

No, I'm not saying I have a say because I bought the game. I'm saying I have a right because they promised something.

Imagine you buy a car, and the dealer says it's got AC. You buy it, and find out it doesn't. It's as simple as that: they said what I was paying for one something it wasn't.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

they were so vague, and it was one person verbally saying something that could so easily be taken out of context or distorted to a personal viewpoint. it wasn't anything they said in a paid ad. if the argument really comes down to the rachni's role in the end then that's really pathetic.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

hmm. i guess i meant individuality when i said free will. it's fair to say they exercised free will to be self determined, but each individual geth was only experiencing the collective consciousness of all geth. the free will sense i'm thinking of is the free will of each individual geth to choose how to act, even among themselves.

Doesn't matter on which ending he lived, on all of them the citadel blows up. Yup, a huge 44km long space station completely blows up.

nope, you are absolutely wrong about this. in the control ending, what we're arguing about, the citadel does not blow up. as it sends out the blue energy field on earth to take control of the reapers, you can clearly see the citadel as the source of the blast, it's not being blown up as it obviously does in the synthesis or destroy endings. after the reapers leave, the next scene shows each of the tips of the citadel come together and close up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmXGAtjv5aQ

the control ending explosion starts at 23:38. you can see the extant citadel at 25:13.

The Illusive man was part cyborg because of the operation he underwent on that base where you kill Mirada's dad (can't recall the name).

can you show me what you mean? i don't remember TIM looking anything like he did at the end on the citadel at any other point in the game.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

nope, you are absolutely wrong about this. in the control ending, what we're arguing about, the citadel does not blow up. as it sends out the blue energy field on earth to take control of the reapers, you can clearly see the citadel as the source of the blast, it's not being blown up as it obviously does in the synthesis or destroy endings. after the reapers leave, the next scene shows each of the tips of the citadel come together and close up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmXGAtjv5aQ

the control ending explosion starts at 23:38. you can see the extant citadel at 25:13.

Ooops, my bad, he actually desintegrates into thin air as clearly seen on that video on that ending. Guess that makes much more sense. Wonder what that rubble was, and we he re-integrated there.

I had never paid attention that the citadel closes on both Control endings though, thanks for pointing that out.

The Illusive man was part cyborg because of the operation he underwent on that base where you kill Mirada's dad (can't recall the name).

can you show me what you mean? i don't remember TIM looking anything like he did at the end on the citadel at any other point in the game.

I'm not sure if it was
a) On the mission you rescue Miranda from her father on (can't-recall-planet's-name).
b) The raid to Cerberus' HQ

There are several terminals along the way, you can see them doing different types of experiments on people, becoming husk-like and stuff. On the last video, you can see The Illusive Man talking to a scientist about experimenting on himself and undergoing "the treatment".

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

*Really*?
Don't you know how to use google?
It's wasn't *one developer* on *one annoucement*, it was lots of 'em. I even came across a website with a list of inconsistencies between annoucements/press releases/etc and the final product we payed for, and pretty expensive, BTW.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

i did look around, and i mostly saw a bunch of writer/director interviews (the same short list of people; the "one" person i was previously referring to being Mac Walters since he was the most prolific interviewee and nobody else really said anything he didn't) in which they say something to the effect that the ending will be super-awesome. i couldn't find a single definitive "promise." i couldn't find a single definitive statement that couldn't be taken out of context or construed to fit however one feels. the closest thing i saw was a statement -- anecdotally in the writer's excitement to talk about the ending -- that the rachni have a major role to play in the ending. considering they were a bunch of spider thugs to start with and in the end they work on the crucible off-camera is enough to stretch that statement from the writer's point of view. i hear chatter about some "16 promised endings" but can't find a single source on that from bioware anywhere. the most i will concede is that bioware employees tried to amp up enthusiasm for the game by praising their work hyperbolically, and a lot of fans (who care way way too much) took these for graven oaths that would exceed their (much too) wildest imaginations. hyperbole in interviews are not contracts. also, the list of inconsistencies with the mass effect novel is far greater than the game's finale. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XBpMF3ONlI308D9IGG8KICBHfWKU0sXh0ntukv-_cmo/preview?pli=1&sle=true

i'd also like to point out that just because you can raise galactic readiness with multiplayer it doesn't necessarily mean they cheated. a lot of people conveniently forget that your first option in playing the game is whether you want pure story, pure action or mix of both (the RPG mode). if you're not going to do the side missions in action mode, the multiplayer allowed a way to raise the readiness rating so you could still get an ending where not everything was destroyed. when you try to please everyone you end up pissing off at least a few. unfortunately too many people felt entitled to the vision they formed in their heads of what would happen. i liken this to the phenomenon of having your bubble burst when you finally get to know the person you've had a crush on (especially long distance and/or internet relationships). you build a fantasy in your head comprised of nothing but the greatest things about the person and then you find out they're human and have flaws. suddenly they're nothing like what you imagined and your infatuation ends.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

Actually, you can achieve all seven endings without playing MP. I did the synergy ending without playing MP at all.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

can you do them without doing the side missions? as far as i'm aware, the only way to get the rating high enough for the "good" endings is to either complete enough side missions, or play tons of multiplayer. if you're the action mode guy just burning through the main missions, i think you'd need the multiplayer to raise the rating high enough. i could be wrong?

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

So, you're point is that you miss part of the game (the "good ending"), if you deliberately skip (miss) most of the game?

I don't know any ME fans that don't do all the non-main missions either. If someone cares about the action and skips though most of the game, I dont think that person would mind if he/she can pick all the endings, since he/she didn't care about any of the story before.

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[Eponymous Hero]

well, i am leaving out the possibility that all that star system scanning would be enough to raise the readiness rating. i haven't seen that done to know one way or the other, but i doubt it is enough.

people are strange. it's good form to allow a player to replay the ending of a multi-ending game so they can see the possibilities available to them. i do believe there are those who breezed through the game and then wanted to know what all the endings were. even if only to know what the fuss is about.

still trying to find time to hunt down that TIM cyborg scene...

Re:EA strangles another once great studio

[hobarrera]

Ultimately, when Shepard was able to track down Cerberus Headquarters, the Illusive Man was absent for the Alliance assault. Video logs found on the station show that the Illusive Man allowed himself to be implanted with Reaper-derived nanotechnology. He later appears before Shepard as a hologram, and tells Shepard that Cerberus will never be destroyed, claiming it to be an idea, not just an organization.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Illusive_Man#Mass_Effect_3

There's several computers aboard the Cerberus HQ on your way around, with several vid-logs of this, as well as EDI's creation and Shepard's resurection, IIRC.

Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter what bioware dose short of rehiring all the writers that left and making an expansion pack that is epic will anything make up for the pure crap that was fed to us.

Release date set by marketing

[Spliffster]

Bah, looks like they haven't had time to create a good ending before the Release date. Doesn't matter here you can buy it for some additional $ as DLC.

Re:Release date set by marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, looks like they haven't had time to create a good ending before the Release date. Doesn't matter here you can buy it for some additional $ as DLC.

Riiiiiight. They'll be raking in the cash with their nefarious plan to release this DLC for free. Sure, they lose money on every copy, but they'll make it up in volume!

Re:Release date set by marketing

[Baloroth]

Really? You can't even be bothered to read the title of the article? Here, let me quote it for you:

BioWare Announces Free DLC To Add More To the Mass Effect 3 Endings

Re:Release date set by marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, no, they don't mean "free as in beer". They mean libre.

Stallman's got to them. It's GPL 3.0 now.

Ok, not really.

Being the story vs being told a story...

[raydobbs]

...the distinction is clearly not important to EA or what's left of Bioware. I can honestly say that given this news, I have -zero- desire to play the series again as-is. This was a journey best not taken at all, and it has made me reflect on all the time I've wasted playing games in general. If I am being told a narrative, then it should do so - if I am part of the narrative, don't yank the control of it from me at the end because you don't like the possibility I will chose something you don't want to do. Also, you don't go all 'werewolf' and torch everything in the end - it makes people's investment a fruitless one. Until game makers figure that out, I am done with 'interactive fiction' titles - ESPECIALLY from these two.

Re:Being the story vs being told a story...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad to see that I am not the only one that the endings ruined the entire series for. I removed all 3 from my machine and will not play them again until this is fixed. To heck with their clarity DLC. Mass Effect is dead to me.

Re:Being the story vs being told a story...

[some1001]

This argument seems analogous to "graphics in games are not photorealistic therefore I am not immersed as much as I wish therefore it's not worth my time to enjoy the game."

I would love to hear your reason as to why you hate having choices yanked out of you in a limited game. I mean, do you honestly expect an "interactive fiction" where you can make any decision that you possibly could want? Golly what if someone is a pacifist and doesn't want to go blow up virtual aliens? What if someone wants to be a psycho and kill all major characters? Do you expect the game makers to have thought of every stupid thing a person could want to do and develop an individual story with voice overs and endings to all?

Limited time. Limited money. Limited technology. There is no way to feasibly construct some game that is both a sandbox (allowing you to do whatever you feel like) and story driven (to actually be told a unique story) at the same time given our current abilities in game making. Either you have your expectations so high it's not even funny, or you are going to cite some shitty 8-bit game of "amazingness" that is 100 times better than anything today because it "let you do anything you wanted."

Re:Being the story vs being told a story...

[Githaron]

I have -zero- desire to play the series again as-is.

Nor do I. I was a little annoyed by some of the choices that were made for me in Mass Effect 3 since I did not load a save (because I had reformatted my hard drive); however, prior to finishing Mass Effect 3, I was planning on going back and replaying the whole series from the beginning so that I could get the outcomes that I wanted. After getting to the crapping ending of the series, ALL desire to replay ANY of the Mass Effect games died. I had even planned to buy the DLCs that had come out after I had finished the respective game. I think I am just going to put EA on my blacklist with Apple and Sony.

Re:Being the story vs being told a story...

[Anonymous Coward]

They did a fine job with the endings of ME1 and an even better job with ME2.
ME3 was not up to that level of quality, despite explicit promises about that being said in the press to their potential customers.

Your argument has no basis in fact.

Re:Being the story vs being told a story...

[ProfBooty]

What about fallout 1-2? The ending was pretty specific as to what exactly you did in each town....

free until april 2014!!

[X0563511]

Read the fine print. What the hell are they going to do, start charging extra for it after 2 years?

Re:free until april 2014!!

[Anonymous Coward]

By then, they'll have finished programming the real ending and putting all the sounds, music and voice into it. Which they'll then sell.

Re:free until april 2014!!

[Haedrian]

So if you buy it after the price drops to a low level, you'll have to stay with the crappy ending.

Re:free until april 2014!!

[CanHasDIY]

No, they'll just stop offering it, like they did with the "ME1 comic book" DLC for PS3 ME2 that I never got to go through because I just bought ME2 about a month ago... which means I'm stuck with the 'default' choices from ME1.

That is, unless I'm blind and missed where to download it?

Re:free until april 2014!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a response from Bioware about this in the forums, they said to ignore this date and that they would offer the free dlc forever (well, I suppose as long as the other future dlc will be available). The date is supposedly tacked on automatically to all free dlc, but it wouldn't be the case for this particular one.

Unfortunately, I'm at work and don't have a linky handy.

Re:free until april 2014!!

[sdnoob]

that's when the online authentication servers for their fucked up drm go offline....

Re:free until april 2014!!

[X0563511]

This lets you get saves for ME1, while this does the same for ME2. I know you can get these onto a 360 with some work, but I don't know about the PS3.

But that's what you get for running with a console - your flexibility to work around publisher idiocy such as you mention is significantly reduced.

It happens.

[samazon]

Every game that you love is going to have a disappointing ending, because it is... an ending. Regardless of what you accomplished, it means that there's no more. Just like with books that you love, especially series - anyone read The Wheel of Time series? Anyone else cry when Rigney (Robert Jordan) died? It's because you know that even though he got Brandon Sanderson to finish it, it's not the same, and it never will be. THAT is a disappointing ending.

It's terrible that Bioware did what they did. The determinism of it is moot - I keep hearing about this "god card" that was pulled and that's BS - a "god card" and true deterministic ending would mean that you'd have NO choice at the end and the result would be based on your previous actions BUT I'M SPLITTING HAIRS. The ending sucked. Everyone's made such a big deal about it. But was there really a way to end it without pissing everyone off? And all the loud noises that everyone is making... is there REALLY anything that can be done to please everyone at this point in the game? The real sin was making people feel that even if they played it through again, they'd get the same ending no matter what. An offense that will ultimately cost Bioware money... but not something that you can slap a bandaid on or make a DLC for.

Re:It happens.

[Githaron]

Every game that you love is going to have a disappointing ending, because it is... an ending.

Not true. I have read/watched/played plenty of book/TV/movie/games series that I loved but was not disappointed by the ending. Don't get me wrong, I was disappointed that they were ending but I was not disappointed by the ending. What does disappointed and infuriate me is bad or non-existent endings. The creators and story-tellers need to have some pride in their work and actually make a ending worthy of the series.

Seems obvious to me

[sl4shd0rk]

Most people never finish these games and they know it, so why spend a lot of time on a great ending? For return customers? HAH! when you're the only game in town, you don't need to worry.

The second part is they really only care about the first couple months of the user experience. They put just enough effort into the game so they can still make high volume sales before anyone has a chance to get the shitty parts where they "duct taped" stuff on. By the time anyone figures it out, they've already made a ton of cash on it.

I just quit buying the new titles until they are a year or so old.

Re:Seems obvious to me

[wonkey_monkey]

Most people never finish these games and they know it, so why spend a lot of time on a great ending? For return customers? HAH! when you're the only game in town, you don't need to worry.

BioWare apparently disagree, since in this case they've bowed to the pressure and improved the endings. They probably did the sums and realised they stood to lose more on the next game because of the bad feeling from fans.

I'll settle for a Dallas fix

[medv4380]

Just have me wake up after being hit by the beam in ME1. It's a horrible way to think about it, but at least that ending will have been erased. It then puts you in a nice recursive replay loop, and that I can accept.

It's not the storytelling of the ending per se,

[wazzzup]

...it's the way the ending was implemented.

Battle Readiness high or low? Doesn't matter, same cutscene.
Geth or Quarians alive? Doesn't matter, same cutscene.
Rachni queen alive or dead? Doesn't matter, same cutscene.
Renegade or Paragon? Doesn't matter, same cutscene.

Regardless of plot holes and deux ex machina, what pissed me off was that the last 10 minutes of the game was antithetical to the way the entire series - hundreds of hours of playtime - functioned up to that point. The whole frickin' point of Mass Effect was that your choices mattered but ultimately they just didn't. And the fact that choosing control, destroy or synthesize only ended up changing the color of the explosions (okay plants had circuit boards in their leaves if you chose synthesize) was a fart in a bathtub.

I had a Paragon save and a Renegade save from Mass Effect 2 and played the Paragon first. There is no incentive whatsoever to play the Renegade save. I'm not even interested in any DLC because it's all pointless.

Re:It's not the storytelling of the ending per se,

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that Sovereign always gets blown up in ME1 and the Collector Base always goes boom in ME2, right?

Really, though, the greatest sin about it is that it's 15 minutes of literally limping around in slow motion, with only the world's most bizarre mexican standoff intervening. Compare that to the incredible action sequence at the end of ME2. Or hell, the end sequence on Tuchanka in ME3. It was clearly different writers.

And it wouldn't necessarily have been so bad if the "big picture" had been explained to you a little better. Right at the end of ME2, Harbinger claims he's your salvation, the reaper on Rannoch echoes it ... if they'd just brought Harbinger back to explain things, then maybe it'd give more impact to the end.

Oh and while I'm fantasizing about a director's cut, I'd get rid of that idiotic Kai Leng.

Re:It's not the storytelling of the ending per se,

[phorm]

At the end of ME2, you have the choice of either blowing up the collector base, or releasing a "pulse" which kills everyone inside it but keeps the base itself operational for "investigation" of the tech etc.

The video was pretty much the same, but your discussions with the Elusive Man are quite different.

Re:It's not the storytelling of the ending per se,

[chihowa]

Or hell, the end sequence on Tuchanka in ME3. It was clearly different writers.

Mordin's role on Tuchanka is simply amazing. Even the renegade ending there is gut-wrenchingly epic. If they ended the series with something even a tenth as well thought out as Tuchanka, the whole series would have been perfect. And the Tuchanka ending isn't terribly happy, any way you spin it, so it's not a matter of a happy ending.

Mass Effect just isn't an angsty nihilistic story, so an angsty nihilistic ending doesn't fit. Not every story has to have an artsy or deeply philosophic ending to be a good story. And faking an artsy or philosophic ending certainly won't cut it.

Ahhh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a half decade interactive movie!

And we shit on all of it in only 10 minutes at the end! Take that!

I think i should just pirate all games now. Stuff like this won't annoy me nearly as much when it's free.

The ending was bad, but...

[damnbunni]

The ending to Mass Effect 3 was nowhere NEAR as annoying as all the whining about it.

Re:The ending was bad, but...

[cyber-vandal]

+1 :)

Re:The ending was bad, but...

[shutdown -p now]

Annoying?

I haven't even played ME (any part), but I would like to heartily thank Bioware for providing an epic drama for teh internets. Lulz were had, a great many of them!

The ending was fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Should say "whether or not the ending is disappointing" rather than "the disappointing ending," because I wasn't disappointed by it. I felt it was a perfectly fine ending to the trilogy, and a very large number of people feel the same way as me. The difference is that those of us who enjoyed the ending aren't necessarily going to be vocal about it, whereas the goal of those who dislike it is to make as loud of a shout as possible so they can try and get their way. As much as people think they want a different ending (by and large they want a hollywood ending as opposed to the artistic ending, which is what their real problem with it is), sacrificing the integrity of the art for the sake of consumer demand is a far worse crime in my opinion.

Re:The ending was fine

[Anonymous Coward]

sacrificing the integrity of the art for the sake of consumer demand is a far worse crime in my opinion.

What "integrity of the art"? That's simply subjective.

And how is that worse? If there's enough people, they don't want to lose money.

Re:The ending was fine

[Githaron]

Should say "whether or not the ending is disappointing" rather than "the disappointing ending," because I wasn't disappointed by it. I felt it was a perfectly fine ending to the trilogy, and a very large number of people feel the same way as me. The difference is that those of us who enjoyed the ending aren't necessarily going to be vocal about it, whereas the goal of those who dislike it is to make as loud of a shout as possible so they can try and get their way. As much as people think they want a different ending (by and large they want a hollywood ending as opposed to the artistic ending, which is what their real problem with it is), sacrificing the integrity of the art for the sake of consumer demand is a far worse crime in my opinion.

How about everyone here who like the ending be vocal about it. Explain to the rest of us why you think the ending was in any way good. I am genuinely interested why you think crap tastes good.

Re:The ending was fine

[germansausage]

"by and large they want a hollywood ending as opposed to the artistic ending, which is what their real problem with it is" - 100% entirely incorrect. We don't want a "happy" ending. Nobody seriously expected to see Shepard and Garrus on a beach somewhere drinking mai tais at the end. We know shepard's destiny is destroy the reapers at the cost of her (his) own life. Sure as hell we don't want a hollywood ending. We want an ending that 1. doesn't introduce a blue glowing deus ex machina child 5 minutes before the end of the game. 2. Allows our choices as a player to have some effect (Choose Krogans or Salarians, Choose Geth or Quarians, no difference) 3. Makes sense 4. provides a proper denoument, instead of absolutely everything blows up, normandy crashes, farmboy asks for another shepard story?? WTF??) What happens to galactic civilization? Did we actually save it or did the mass relay explosions wipe out everything and everyone we knew? 5. Doesn't feel like it was hastily cobbled together in about 5 minutes and pasted on without any thought.

Re:The ending was fine

[Anonymous Coward]

I can take pictures of doo-doo all day long and call it art.
A select few will agree.

The rest will think it is just crap.

Re:The ending was fine

[Lord Chaos EOG]

Just because people liked the glossed over, little sense and plot holed ending doesn't make it any better. This isn't just an ending of a book or a movie, where you're following some other characters doing the same thing for everyone. This is an involved interactive game and therefor there's much more at stake for the ending, as its wrapping up half a decade worth of personal choices and involvement, which unlike movies and books, are somewhat unique to each person playing the game. Does it make sense that Joker turns into a coward? No...Does it make sense that your team mates magically teleports across the galaxy? No...Does it make sense that Shepard all of a sudden completely changes character? No Is it forfilling to know that your only choice is to strand the superfleet on earth (who can't even sustain them), kill billions, undo the peace you worked so hard for? No, not really. Is it forfilling that your hero after half a decades worth of work only amounts to a sheepish crap choice? No, not really. Is it forfilling that Bioware directly contradicted their own promise of the ending? Is it forfilling that all your choices and work all through the game doesn't even matter whatsoever? No, not really. This here sums it up nicely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E

Translation

[Ransak]

BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.

Translation:

EA believes we've spent enough money on an ending. We're getting dinged on fan review sites like Metacritic so we're going to throw another bandaid on it for as little cost as possible.

Re:Translation

[Lord Chaos EOG]

I don't even care if I have to PAY for a proper ending...I just want a proper ending. Try and imagine if Harry Potter had ended as poorly as Mass Effect 3, J.K.Rowling would have been hung by millions of irate fans.

Re:Translation

[Ransak]

I agree 100% about the ending, but honestly I had problems with the whole thing. The writing in Mass Effect 3 with the Crucible was one big Deus Ex Machina (the plot device, not the game of the same name) and the ending was a tacked on, rushed out, last minute hack job similar to Deus Ex:Revolution (the game this time, not the plot device).

I'm a little shocked more people didn't have issues with the ME3 storyline considering the whole Crucible plot device was never alluded to or foreshadowed in the previous games. Bioware has fallen from where they once were in the pantheon of gaming development companies that would consistently produce tightly written, well thought out stories. Perhaps EA is to blame and based on what came out of Bioware after Dragon Age 2 was shoved out the door that's not a bad theory.

B.F.D.

[Anonymous Coward]

until there's a steam-only drm version available, i ain't buying this anyway.... since that won't happen, fuck off bioware.

Game needs a major patch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bioware should just put out a 4gb patch that makes the game not feel repetitive, add personalities back to characters, make the combat not feel so boring and put some dialouge in the game that doesnt involve the phrase "saving lives" and then make the ending not seem like they said "Well were done folks so lets slap together a ending quick so we can all go home cause Im hungry".

The entire game itself was a big let down compared to the other 2 games that I dont care about a new ending. Ill just youtube it and be done with it. Bioware as a whole has severly declined in quality since they joined up with EA so I just dont care about them anymore.

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[Ash-Fox]

Bioware should leave it alone. There are many gamers such as my self that found the game fine as is. Of course ,the ones disappointed are going to be the vocal ones.

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[Anonymous Coward]

By which you mean something like 80% of the people polled hated it, so obviously they should leave it alone.

Look, in reality it goes this way. Those that hate something will make more of a stink about it. Enough stink gets made, some stink attaches to product or company. Less people purchase products from them in the future. Revenues are affected.

Good.

The ending was an inconsistent piece of crap. The rest of the game was great, but... it seems that many people played the game not for the gameplay, but for the universe and the story... both of which were thrown away on top of a big pile of steaming doo-doo and claimed to be "artistic". It is artistic like taking pictures of doo-doo are artistic. Most find it to be crap.

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad you got what you wanted out of the game. Why are you denying other people the same satisfaction?

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[Ash-Fox]

Glad you got what you wanted out of the game. Why are you denying other people the same satisfaction?

Because other people want to change what I got out of the game into something else.

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[Ash-Fox]

By which you mean something like 80% of the people polled hated it, so obviously they should leave it alone.

I was never asked to use some poll. It's not representative.

The ending was an inconsistent piece of crap.

That's your opinion, not mine, I thought it was brilliant.

The rest of the game was great, but... it seems that many people played the game not for the gameplay, but for the universe and the story...

I've found a lot of people are mad because they couldn't change the larger storyline, just the smaller bits, as always been the case in the Mass Effect series, then suddenly now people are mad for a variety of reasons, including not being able to change the major storyline and citing Mass Effect 2 and original Mass Effect as examples where you could, but actually couldn't.

People are also mad because they don't get their happy ending. Let's not forget the fact that they are mad that it's actually ending, there is no more story so they feel a huge sense of loss - That's good story telling.

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[heypete]

People are also mad because they don't get their happy ending. Let's not forget the fact that they are mad that it's actually ending, there is no more story so they feel a huge sense of loss - That's good story telling.

Are you sure? I, like pretty much everyone else I've read with criticism about the ending, don't care if the ending is happy or not: it's been made clear through all three games that Shep is willing to go as far as is needed, including sacrificing him/herself, to protect the galaxy.

Yes, it'd be nice to have Shep knocking back beers with Garrus, raising little blue children with Liara, or settling down with Tali in her house on Rannoch...but that's not why fans are mad -- they're mad because the ending makes no sense. Who is the Catalyst? Why should Shep trust them? How did your final squadmates make it from the final charge to the beam back into the Normandy? Why is the Normandy fleeing instead of fighting? (The ship and crew were always the tip of the spear in all the previous major conflicts in the entire series, including the suicide mission in ME2; it's unlikely that they'd chicken out now.) Why do all of your previous choices (Geth vs. Quarians, cure the genophage, etc.) not have any effect (even if the effect is a simple line of dialogue)? What happens to all the dextro-amino people in orbit around the devastated earth with no relays? Do they starve?

A Fallout-style epilogue slideshow that summed up your choices, actions, and their consequences would have been satisfying...but a blatant deus ex machinima followed by an internally-inconsistent ending with no sense of closure (and, adding insult to injury, was followed by loading your save from before the assault on the Cerberus station and a note to buy more DLC)? No, that's a crappy, weak ending no matter how you spin it.

(As an aside, the almost total lack of side missions in ME3 was also a let down and made the universe seem much smaller than the previous games. The main plotline was excellent and well-done up to the ending, but all the side missions were "overhear some conversation on the citadel, go to a planet, launch a probe, return to the citadel" which got really boring really fast.)

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[Lord Chaos EOG]

Right, it was really brilliant...lets throw everything away, have Joker be a coward, Shepard an idiot, all your choices not matter and crew members magically teleport across the galaxy.

You're right, what a brilliant ending. Some people like eating turds too, that doesn't mean major restaurants should serve turds.

And the whole point of Mass Effect is that everyone could have their own story line, which means it should generally be fit to everyones liking, not pander to a very small segment. Btw, I didn't vote on that poll either, so our votes cancel eachother out and it still stands.

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[hobarrera]

Endings aside, the charactes itself lacked any depth. In previous mass effect games, you could talk *a lot* with every character, get to know them very very well, even Dr. Chakwas. Now, every time I try to talk to most characters it's "Hey Shepard!", except for very scarse dialogs on very counted occasions.

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[Ash-Fox]

Right, it was really brilliant...lets throw everything away, have Joker be a coward, Shepard an idiot, all your choices not matter and crew members magically teleport across the galaxy.

Since when did your choices matter in the mass effect storyline? You could never really influence larger events, just the smaller things.

And the whole point of Mass Effect is that everyone could have their own story line, which means it should generally be fit to everyones liking, not pander to a very small segment.

You clearly didn't play mass effect, because that was not the point. You didn't get to influence the larger story line stuff by much, you made decisions in them, yes, but the overall outcome was never that largely different depending on what choice you made.

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[IcyNeko]

Actually, most people aren't mad because the ending is sad/tragic. Way to buy into propaganda. If you bother to read what everyone has said or listened to the countless youtube comments, there's one united message:

The endings are discontinuous in flow from the rest of the games.

It's not that people die. Most people are okay with people dying. It's that the game shifted from one which choice mattered and character endings were explained concisely to one in which there are more questions than answers. For instance, why were my crew, whom were completely loyal to me through the games and fought to their bitter ends on every other mission... suddenly running from battle? Especially the squad mates that were with me on the ground battle, charged with me to the citadel matter stream, saw me get cut down.. so what? Joker flies the partyvan by and tells everyone that it's time to peace out? That kinda personality change is very inconsistent. Every single person would continue fighting until the job was done. You don't ride in with every races' best ships to war just to chicken out when it counts.

It's not that people are yellign about inability to change a major storyline. To teh contrary, people are upset because the major storyline WAS changed, in the span of 14 lines of dialogue delivered by a 11th hour new villain who has the power to end it all and leaves it up to you, Neo, to rejoin the source. Really? A last minute super villain that supplants the existing villain armada? That's introduced in 14 lines?

Cool story, bro.

My advice? Stop reading Bioware's interpretation of people's anger and actually read what people have to say. What's funny is that despite BioWare saying that they are listening, all the angry people are saying THE SAME EXACT THING, and yet BioWare pretends that they don't hear it. :)

Re:Game needs a major patch.

[Ash-Fox]

Actually, most people aren't mad because the ending is sad/tragic. Way to buy into propaganda. If you bother to read what everyone has said or listened to the countless youtube comments, there's one united message:

The endings are discontinuous in flow from the rest of the games.

You clearly haven't read them then. Most of them say the endings sucks and doesn't say why. A good chunk make stupid comments like "Why Shepard has to die in the ending", which clearly shows they didn't really play through all the possible endings and just assumed the ending they got was it.

I am just seeing people getting on the band wagon here for the sake of it.

For instance, why were my crew, whom were completely loyal to me through the games and fought to their bitter ends on every other mission... suddenly running from battle?

Sorry. I very rarely see this honestly in comments. The biggest thing I see when it comes to complaints is "choices", in a game that didn't really offer you the ability to change the larger point of the storyline significantly, ever. I'm not going to pick and choose which things I see only, going by the majority here.

Also, I didn't assume they were running either, I just assumed it would be something unlocked in future DLC, and lo'behold, they are coming out with new DLC that is going to clarify that. That was sooo hard to guess, really.

Really? A last minute super villain that supplants the existing villain armada? That's introduced in 14 lines?

I don't see the problem here? I really don't. I'm not sure I would have liked to have a 'villain' introduced over 14 lines, let alone a thousand lines.

My advice? Stop reading Bioware's interpretation of people's anger and actually read what people have to say.

Your advice is flawed, you didn't read the majority of stupid comments, your judgement is clearly compromised as to understanding the nature of the crowd reaction since you appear to have ignored the majority.

"Artistic Integrity" is bullshit.

[nathan s]

Everyone who is going on trying to defend the ending and BioWare's laziness is missing the point. If I go to an art gallery, I want artistic integrity. If I buy a game, I want entertainment. It's not that the two can't overlap, it's that the place to express your inner postmodernist isn't at the end of a mainstream entertainment product where you promise the players (and they are players, not participants in your interactive art project) that their choices matter only to say "haha, I lied" at the end and swat them away like annoying little philistines while you gleefully burn their world down. I don't see how anyone who played the first two games (especially having played other games from the same studio in the past) could have predicted that this would be the sort of ending they'd get in the game. It's not that the end was sad or dark that bothers me. It was lazy, incomplete, and a ripoff of the Matrix's Architect mixed with the endings of a typical Deus Ex game.

This is on top of the fact that there is a fair amount of evidence (if only by repeated anecdote/rumor) that the ending was rushed and that it was literally a case of Casey Hudson and the lead writer writing the ending without requesting any feedback from the rest of the writing team with whom they'd collaborated up to that point. It certainly appears to have been written by someone who did not play and love the series as a game and saw it as a chance to be controversial for its own sake.

A real letdown. This was one of my favorite series by a studio I previously would buy titles from without a second thought, but the utter, utter laziness at the end of this game combined with the painful rush job that was Dragon Age 2 means I'll probably never buy another BioWare title new. I'd rather pirate them and decide first if it's actually a fun game or if it's yet another case of some "artist" jerking off.

</rant>

About god damn time

[Karmashock]

The best ending mechanic for RPGs is the fallout method.

They had single image and short voice over for EVERY major quest. How hard is it to knock out 40 or 20-30 second voice overs along with maybe 15 still images? Easy. Do that.

Mass Effect players tweaked their games endlessly to get a perfect ending across THREE games one into the next all culminating at that final point.

And after all that it turns out that all that tweaks was totally wasted. Why import the ME2 game into ME3 if ME3 won't do anything cool with it? It was bullcrap.

And the three endings were pathetic. The whole Red/Green/Blue thing was just insultingly lazy. Maybe they ran out of money... Fine. Do voice overs and stills instead of animations then. We just wanted closure. You play an RPG mostly for the immersion and the story. Just tell us what happened to our characters.

We'll see what this DLC look like but I'm assuming they're not going to change the stupid ending. So I've made up my own ending. I seriously just stared at the screen, invented a new ending, and then believed it instead.

I do that with lots of books that end poorly so why not for a game with a rip off ending.

Sorry if this harsh Bioware, but I was with you guys through three titles and you screwed me on the ending so I'm not feeling terribly charitable. I'm not blacklisting or boycotting you. You still make good games. Just don't screw the gamers again like that. It really makes us very unhappy.

Re:About god damn time

[V-similitude]

I agree with most of what you say. First of all, the whole concept of the ending is terrible, deus-ex machina and all that, blah blah, others have said it better, it's a terrible concept. But even aside from that, it is totally idiotic that they didn't even try to give us some ending slides and voice overs. It's sad that fans can come up with something so much more satisfying than their crappy endings. This site has made me feel a lot better about the endings (but a lot worse about Bioware/EA):

http://shannon.users.sonic.net/masseffect/

Re:About god damn time

[Karmashock]

Yeah, they didn't explain anything. The whole "we kill everyone and jam their mutilated corpses into a tube where it is sucked like a milkshake into some groteseque genocidal machine... to SAVE YOU!"...

Really really dumb. Apparently they switched writers at some point which is always a really bad sign.

I don't know... I think these projects should start with an ACTUAL author that actually writes for the subject. And then just have him bust out an outline for the whole series. Ideally, have him write the dialog, sub quests, etc.

Bioware is solid in a lot of places. They're falling down on the story telling. HIRE a storyteller. And as part of the deal let him sell some books or other assorted fiction for the series.

Don't just get your creative director and say "okay, you're an author now"... cus' he's not. It's the difference between being a screen writer and a producer or a director. Not the same thing.

Re:About god damn time

[kwoff]

Mass Effect players tweaked their games endlessly to get a perfect ending across THREE games one into the next all culminating at that final point.

And after all that it turns out that all that tweaks was totally wasted.

Something to consider before playing a computer game for hundreds of hours: it wasn't ever really going anywhere anyway.

Re:About god damn time

[Karmashock]

You can say that about people that read long book series and then the last book in the series ends with a bs ending. Or people that put a lot of time into anything.

I get that you're not a gamer. That's fine. But I bet there is something you put time into and it would annoy you if the people responsible for organizing it half assed everything to the point where it ruined the experience for you.

What do you like? Football? Basketball? Enjoy any movies or books? What about music?

There has to be something.

That and it also totally changes the story

[Sycraft-fu]

*SPOILER ALERT*

So the over arching story in the ME universe is, of course, "Stop the Reapers, save the galaxy." That's what the major theme is. Even when you think it has deviated, it in fact hasn't. The Reapers are the baddies, we don't know why and maybe we can't even understand (Sovereign says it is beyond our comprehension). also a big motivation behind this is the connection to the characters in the game. It features a lot of sitting and talking, and the reason is you get to know and care about your characters.

Then, in the last 10 minutes of the game, in 14 lines of dialogue, all that is changed. Now we are supposed to accept, from a character we've never met, that the Reapers aren't evil, and that we can't stop them or save the galaxy really, we just have to make a completely out of context choice. We are now supposed to make a decision about the value of organic and synthetic life, something that has never been part of the series.

Now such a change could happen validly in a story. You can have something going one way and then change... but not in the last 14 lines. This shit would have needed to happen shortly after ME3 started, you discover that all along your goal was the wrong one or a false one or whatever. You have time to come to terms with that, learn about it, and then work towards the new goal. That is valid in story telling. Not just completely changing shit right before the end.

Also there's the fact that you feel that absolutely everything you've done amounts to precisely nothing.

Re:That and it also totally changes the story

[moronoxyd]

So the over arching story in the ME universe is, of course, "Stop the Reapers, save the galaxy.

[...]

Then, in the last 10 minutes of the game, in 14 lines of dialogue, all that is changed. Now we are supposed to accept, from a character we've never met, that the Reapers aren't evil, and that we can't stop them or save the galaxy really, we just have to make a completely out of context choice.

Except: That's not true.

We have the choice to stop the Reapers, even destroy them.
And yes, that comes at a terrible price (destruction of the mass relays), but did you really think it would come cheap?

Re:That and it also totally changes the story

[stewartjm]

Destroying the Mass relays to stop the Reapers would be a perfectly acceptable renegade ending, if it was Shepard who was destroying the mass relays to stop the Reapers, preferably by running a combat mission where you hacked into the relay control network with EDI's help, possibly on the citadel.

One of dozens of gaping flaws with the end is that Shepard is no longer the protagonist, that role is assume by the star child deus ex machine, who was introduced 5 minutes previous with 14 whole lines of dialogue. If you choose destroy, it is the star child who destroys the reapers and the network, not Shepard.

Another gaping flaw is the fact that the citadel is at earth at all, which would be ok if it had been foreshadowed that it could move, by moving it earlier. Though even if it had been properly foreshadowed, what happened to all of the people Shepard knew who lived on the citadel? And why was it moved off screen? Talk about blowing a chance for an epic cut scene.

Bad, lazy, horrible, writing, and by far the best explanation for it, is that EA refused to extend the release deadline again, so they had to tack something simple on and throw it out the door.

Re:That and it also totally changes the story

[AmiMoJo]

Also there's the fact that you feel that absolutely everything you've done amounts to precisely nothing.

Hay, some of call that a "rewarding career". *Sob*

Re:That and it also totally changes the story

[IcyNeko]

Who's to say it wasn't Casey Hudson's design genius that envisioned the end of the reapers through detonating eezo-driven mass relays, thus causing catastrophic system-wide explosions, just to perpetuate an adam-and-eve scenario with Tali, Liara, any-member-of-my-team-that-Joker-could-normally-not-get-a-date-with-but-in-my-absense-he-can?

I wonder if Mass Effect 4 will just be like Age of Empires or something.

Though, if Bioware really IS listening but wanted a quick out, they should just release an official DLC.... ported to Minecraft. Call it... "Build a home with Tali on Rannoch.

And to make it worse

[Sycraft-fu]

It wasn't as though they just had all that forced out of them by EA completely. ME3 had plenty of good implementation in it. You had story lines that differed depending on who was alive coming in to ME3, and the choices you made. You could have some real different experiences and outcomes.

Like man was the Tuchanka mission beautiful. If both main characters had died in previous series (and probably not coincidentally both were easier ones to lose) it could be kinda shitty, you really felt compelled to take the asshole option because it was the best of a bad situation. Still a good story, but one you couldn't help feeling was bad because you fucked up.

However if they were both alive, it could be a great story arc. You saw a wonderful case of redemption and sacrifice, a rebirth of a species, and the beginnings of a new peace. Your work and decisions mattered and the outcome, though not perfect, was a good one.

So clearly they have it in them, but they just decided to throw it all away with Priority: Earth. The final mission is garbage and the endings are worse. Very frustrating. Hell if it was a matter of resources cut the Tuchanka bit entirely and put the resources to the end. Would be a much better game that way, and you could re-add Tuchanka in DLC.

I don't know what the fuck happened.

No shit

[Sycraft-fu]

I have seen many good deconstructions of why the ending is a bad one from a literary point of view, cinematic, story telling, logical, and so on. There are tons of faults and I've seen them talked about at great length and with solid backing.

Everyone who says they liked it can't seem to elaborate. It was just "a good ending and you people are morons for hating it." Personally I think the reason id they fall in to one (or maybe more) of three categories:

1) Bioware fanboys. They think everything Bioware does is great and thus this must be great. A Stockholm Syndrome of sorts. They defend it because the need to feel that Bioware has done right be the series and didn't fuck it up, not because that is deep down how they feel. Their defense is reflexive.

2) Emo kids and wannabe ITGs. I've seen this with regards to movies and shit where people claim to hate "happy endings" and so on and act like the more things suck the better it is. They believe "dark" means "good". Of course they are usually fooling only themselves and you find if you examine the things they like, there are plenty of happy endings in it. They just play tough, or are pulling the emo crap.

3) People who don't really give a shit about RPGs. For them Mass Effect was just a shootie like Doom with more talking. They space through cutscenes, ignore dialogue, and so on. They are all about the action. So they have no real investment in the story at all, and thus the ending is fine. "Oh hey I blew a bunch of shit up! Go me! Good ending!"

I would think if the ending was truly so good, at least one person would be able to provide a competent defense as to why. Showing the things that were done well in terms of telling the story, providing closure, and all those kind of things an ending is supposed to do. That they can't well that tells me a lot right there.

Re:No shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe the people who liked it (or at least didn't hate it enough to be a whiny little bitch about it) enjoyed getting there more than the destination. I may not have been happy about the way it ended, but I can take a fucking step back and enjoy the series without discounting the whole thing cause the last minutes didn't jive with what I thought should happen.

People have this strange sense of reality when 5 minutes at the end of something can ruin a 100+ hours experience that most would agree are some of the best in an RPG ever. The fact is the whole game was the ending. It was obvious from the word go that this was a farewell tour. You said goodbye to the companions you had over the course of the three games, set things right in the galaxy and ended some disputes that had gone on thousands of years (and all the games) and in the end saved the galaxy from annihilation no matter what you chose.

What they did in the last 5 minutes was give people something to debate (What does that mean? Who was the catalyst? How did the normandy escape? etc) as the series fades from our consciousness. It's an artistic choice and not everyone needs to have every single plot point wrapped up in a nice little bow to be happy.

The fact that people took these questions as literal and used them to claim 'plothole! shitty writing!' is telling. I actually feel sorry for the BW people. You can't do anything these days without some vocal minority getting all up in arms about it.

Re:No shit

[Githaron]

Or maybe the people who liked it (or at least didn't hate it enough to be a whiny little bitch about it) enjoyed getting there more than the destination. I may not have been happy about the way it ended, but I can take a fucking step back and enjoy the series without discounting the whole thing cause the last minutes didn't jive with what I thought should happen.

Endings can destroy a good story. This is especially so when the story is told in the form of a video game. If you spend hundreds of hours in a story, you expect all your work to have value. Mass Effect 3 invalidates the whole point of your journey. In the game, you are trying to save galactic civilization from the jaws of death. By the end of the game, what you accomplish is saving a tiny blip in comparison. The destruction of the Mass Effect relays alone will cause galactic civilization to be crippled for what I would guess at least one thousand years. Many planets are saved from annihilation but all their supply chains are gone. Many of the survivors will probably starve or die of disease. For Earth, which was the primary planet to save in the game, it is even worse. Most of the galactic civilization has to survive together on a single planet. While many of the races joined together to fight the Reapers, much of the glue that held them together will be gone after the war. Conflicting cultures and goals combined with extremely scares resources will probably cause war until most of those who survived the Reaper war at Earth will die. Again, many will probably also starve and die of disease.

In the end, there might be some living, breathing, intelligent beings around but they are all living in a resource scarce post-apocalyptic galaxy which might as well be a world because they can only longer travel to the rest of the inhabited worlds.

One of my biggest letdowns...

[Alamais]

A definite plot hole and lack that will certainly get no help from this DLC is the fact that there was no fighting within the Citadel at the end. The endgame of ME1 established that the Reapers don't have any sort of 'kill switch' to clear the Citadel, and it's a huge city with a large population and a well-trained defense force (well-equipped, too, if you do certain side missions). They might have taken the indefensible central tower easily enough as in ME1, in order to close everything up, but taking the Wards should have been a real fight.

They obviously don't want harm to come to the structure (otherwise why bother moving it to Earth? Just blow it up: Crucible problem solved.) Thus they wouldn't be able to directly attack the Citadel the way they do planets, they'd just have to send in ground forces. I was expecting a fight once I got to that transport beam, a battle of attrition between forces constantly being dropped from some number of Reapers that had shut themselves inside the closed Citadel, and the CDF/C-Sec. Yet another place where Bioware failed at "your actions have consequences." Didn't do any CDF side-missions? Have fun grinding through streets littered with corpses, with no aid. Did all the missions? See the CDF holding their own. Buuut no.

The London mission as final gameplay was lame, it felt like a bad Modern-Call-of-Battlefield-War-Duty clone. Very disappointing, even before the rest of the craptastic ending.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

F*cking Hollywood generation - cluesless and unrealistic.

I thought the ending was just fine. Sometimes the road leads to death and after death - you don't get to hang around and see what a clever boy/girl you've been.
Misery - thy name is fandom.

Really? who gives a shit

[Osgeld]

Brown shooter of the year didnt bother to flush out story and will now charge stupid fanboi's for appropriate ending found free on troll forums.

comparison for understanding

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who don't understand what all of the fuss is about here is another way of looking at it. Have you ever watched a movie that was decent until the last half hour or so and then it just falls apart? Or perhaps even a bad sequel to a good movie? At the end I found myself irritated and wishing I had those two hours back. Now imagine that movie was 40 or 60 hours long, and after you've put in the effort to follow the story the last hour appears to be written by the directors 4 year old son?

The investment of time is greater hence the outrage is greater. If Peter Jackson had ended the Lord of the Rings by having Gandolf molest Fro do and Samwise took the ring as a nipple piercing and joined a Mexican drug cartel while Sauron was destroyed by a teenage mutant ninja turtle riding a my little pony I'm pretty sure people would be pissed.

The point is when you tell a story you create an expectation. If you stop telling it 3/4th way through expect a lot of ticked off people. Not because it didn't end the way they wanted but because you just wasted their time. I'm fine with the story however they want to tell it IF they put a disclaimer on the box that read "FYI we intend to half ass the ending".

Indeed

[aepervius]

They dropped the ball completely on amny thigns (beside the fact we don't know anything as epilogue on what happens to the races/friends/etc...).

A MUCH better way to handle the 3 endings would have been :
1) you are paragon/renegade indicate which ending is openned (blue/green para ; red/green/renegade)
2) who you let alive as species and the battle readiness indicate whether you get the basic ending of your type (red/blue) or ALSO the green one. Or whatever.


But an ABC choice at the end ? That was.... Pityful.

Re:Indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, the endings ARE color coded to Paragon/Neutral/Renegade.

Paragon/Control is a BLUE, Neutral/Synthesis is a WHITE beam (ok, so its not green, but Neutral never had a color in the ME series) and Renegade/Destroy is RED.

I didn't know that...

[Rational]

"We fucked up royally" needed further clarification or elaboration.

Indoctrination Theory

[Dixie_Flatline]

If you search for 'Indoctrination Theory' on youtube, you'll find a 20 minute video that addresses the plot holes and stuff that just makes no sense at all. It not only changes the ending, it changes how I looked at the game.

But if it's true—and it might very well be—then BioWare failed at ending presentation, because it was too subtle for most of us to figure it out without referencing a video on youtube.

I'm on my second playthrough, and I've decided that the Geth are the thing that makes the least sense in the game. Why do Geth ships have hallways and railings? Consoles to type at? Guards? Why bother with any of that stuff? And the 'renegade' options near the end of that mission-line are stupid. They present a false dichotomy. You can be a renegade, but not only do you throw away a potential war resource, but they're no danger at all to the Quarians if you pick the paragon options. It's infuriating.

(Disclosure: I worked for BioWare for many years. I do not work for BioWare or EA anymore.)

VERY IMPORTANT

[Lord Chaos EOG]

READ Read the news again. They're not fixing the ending, they're EXPLAINING IT...so basically Bioware doesn't want to admit having made a mistake and just want to act like its US that has made the mistake and just need it better explained to appreciate it. NO NO NO Bioware, this really isn't good enough by a long shot.

Unofficial Mass Effect Epilogue

[siduri]

If you don't want to wait till summer, there's the Unofficial Mass Effect Epilogue Slides to tide you over.

Bioware/EA are Missing the point entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

The Largest Gripe overall with the Mass Effect 3 Ending(s) is that the Game sires itself was HEAVILY Based on and around every single choice/decision/action you make/take having an impact in the game in multiple points as well as in the sequel(s).

This was the Continued trend in the game up until the ending in Mass Effect 3, where any choice you made was no-choice at all all other choices/decisions/actions amount to nothing and all of the endings were essentially the same.

this left the game with a very Unfinished feel and a overall sense that EA/Bioware rushed the end production and slapped on what essentially amounts to a clip art ending that was not even close to being a half a$$ed one, with a feel of an attitude of "F*! them they will never be able to do a thing about it once we have their Money"

EA/Bioware, If you are paying attention at all, this is not about wanting a "Everyone lived Happily Ever After" ending, this is about wanting ending(s) that follow the well established design and flow of the sires, and not something that essentially takes a work of art an defecates on it.